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MANY WATERS 


ELINOR CHIPP 




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MANY WATERS 


BY 

ELINOR CHIPP 

it 

AUTHOR OF “DOUBTING CASTLE,” ETC. 



Many waters cannot quench love, neither 
can the floods drown it .— Song of Solomon. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK : LONDON : MCMXXIV 










D. 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 


1 


APPLETON AND COMPANY 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


AUG ' 924 


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i 


TO 

THE MEMORY OF 

MY MOTHER 









PART ONE 


♦ 



A 


I 










MANY WATERS 


CHAPTER 

i 

B Y the edge of a small irregular pond down in the hol¬ 
low and hidden from the house by a line of flow¬ 
ering shrubs, a small boy was actively engaged in 
the quasi-torture of a very tiny grey kitten. 

Both the boy and the kitten were intensely serious—the 
kitten, owing to its uncomfortable position, the boy, with 
the frowning preoccupation of the investigator. 

The situation admits of possibilities; variations are in¬ 
teresting, piquant, mirth-provoking, according as one 
indulges one’s fancy. In the new-found strength of youth 
there is a range of opportunities quite delightful: one de¬ 
velops originality, one experiments, one is a scientist, a 
latent gift for invention shows itself. One is, moreover, 
all-conquering. 

In the present instance the small boy (he was not really 
so very small, being twelve and a half and already re¬ 
markably fine looking for his age) had acquired a method 
at once delicate and profound. It consisted in throwing 
the tiny ball of grey fluff as far out into the pond as pos¬ 
sible, and then, with mingled delight and admiration, 
watching its slow and perilous struggle back to shore. 

As it reached the region of comparative safety repre- 

3 


MANY WATERS 


sented by the green line of the banks, the boy, eagerly wait¬ 
ing, pounced upon it to send it hurtling once more out into 
the centre of the pond. The kitten, rapidly growing more 
and more exhausted in its hopeless struggle against the 
overwhelming odds, began to show signs of collapse; its 
efforts were ludicrous, pitiable, droll, yet the boy’s inter¬ 
est did not flag. 

‘‘Seven,” counted the boy truculently as he once again 
caught the miserable, dripping little creature. He had all 
but missed him this time, due to a last despairing dodge of 
his victim, for the boy, having inherently the instincts of 
a sportsman, now allowed a second’s grace at the edge of 
the bank—useless as far as the kitten was concerned, too 
exhausted to profit thereby. 

“Seven,” the boy repeated in a low whisper; and held 
the half-drowned, wretched little animal to his breast a 
moment in order to get a better hold on its fur. 

His face was serious, and, in spite of his occupation, in 
no way evil-looking. It was, in fact, save for the frown¬ 
ing brows which the gravity of the business in hand in¬ 
volved, rather affable than otherwise. Tall for his age, 
lithe, fair-haired, with a few faint freckles across the 
bridge of his straight little nose, full, well-formed lips 
and a beautifully modelled chin, he was altogether a pleas¬ 
ing figure of a boy. Attired in a nondescript costume of 
knee-length socks, brown corduroy breeches dulled a soft 
grey from hard wear and showing a rent near the left 
knee, a soft shirt of unusually fine material, open at the 
neck to show a throat straight and slim and wonderfully 
moulded, made up a figure altogether charming to un¬ 
prejudiced eyes. On the bank beside him lay a discarded 
tan sweater. Such was Donald Callender, only son of 
Colonel and Mrs. Callender of Whitridge. 

Gripping the kitten firmly by a handful of fur at the 

4 


MANY WATERS 


back of its neck, he drew himself back, body poised like a 
javelin thrower’s, slender, graceful, a statue carved out of 
mobile living flesh, and let go. At the same instant, from 
behind him, there came a sharp scream, stabbing the silence 
about him and somewhat spoiling his throw. The kitten 
went only half as far as intended. 

He turned. A small girl, white-faced with rage, was 
running towards him from the cluster of elms that hid the 
pond from the road beyond, her hands clenched in anger, 
her lower lip caught fiercely between small white teeth in 
a ferocious effort to keep back the tears. Behind her 
pelted a boy, smaller than the one on the bank, stockier, 
less agile, white-ribboned tie flying behind him as he ran, 
heavy boots thud-thudding on the soft grass. 

The boy on the bank turned back to the pond just in 
time to seize again the unfortunate kitten as he emerged. 
He turned, laughing, to the others, showing a row of 
charmingly white teeth. The smile lighted up his face 
wonderfully, dispelling the frown, making him wholly boy¬ 
ish and lovable. 

“I say, you jolly near made me miss him that time.” 

The newcomers had reached the bank now. They stood 
side by side, an even height, the boy’s face red with run¬ 
ning; the little girl, still pale as ivory, was shaking with 
emotion. 

“You wicked boy! Oh, you wicked boy!” was all she 
could gasp out. The boy beside her stood silent, breathing 
hard, hands tight-clenched. 

In the silence which followed the little girl’s outburst, 
Donald glanced down at the wet and dripping kitten in his 
arms and a look of faint surprise overspread his features. 
It had amused him to watch its struggles in the water; the 
moral attributes of the case had not affected him. 

Now the other boy spoke. “You beast!” he declared, 

5 


MANY WATERS 

seconding the little girl. “You filthy beast! That isn’t 
your kitten.” 

The tall boy looked at him coolly but without any sign 
of annoyance. 

“Well, it isn’t yours, either.” 

Refuted, the smaller boy hesitated, anger struggling with 
a primitive sense of the rights of property. In the dead¬ 
lock thus achieved the little girl stepped forward. What 
a time to fuss and mull with logic, or the question of pos¬ 
session! She pointed a small accusing finger at the 
strange grey kitten, still wet and cowering against the fair 
boy’s breast. 

“Don’t you dare throw it in again,” she lisped. She only 
did this lisping when excited. It was a habit which par¬ 
ticularly annoyed her but which she was to carry with her 
all through life. “Don’t you dare!” she repeated. “If 
you do, Mark will beat you. Won’t you, Mark ?” 

She turned to the boy at her side who, shouldered with 
a sudden responsibility, tried nobly to meet it. 

“Ye-es, rather!” he agreed doubtfully. 

Donald Callender shook the fair hair back from his 
forehead. He looked from one to the other of his critics; 
scowled for a moment in perplexity; then his brow cleared. 

“I’m not going to throw it in again. Here, take your 
old cat.” He tumbled it, dishevelled and dripping, into 
the eager arms of the little girl who had begun to cry 
softly. “You’re a pair of young kids, you are. I’m going 
into the house to get something to eat.” 

He strolled off, hands negligently thrust into his pockets, 
whistling a tune. His whistling was very inexact. 

His capitulation was not due to any fear of the little 
girl’s threat, nor did he resent the implied insult to his 
own pugilistic prowess. Under other circumstances he 
would have fought Mark Wetherell gladly and joyously. 


MANY WATERS 


Nor was it that he was in truth tired of watching the 
struggles and antics of the half-drowned kitten. It was 
simply that he had been brought to see the point of view 
of another. He didn’t care one way or another about the 
kitten; but he respected the others’ strength of feeling in 
the matter. It was significant, this characteristic of his, 
this mobility of viewpoint, and was destined to influence 
him all through life, to smooth the way for him, to bring 
him friends and to make him the universally admired man 
into whom he was later to develop. Carelessly he would 
whistle his serene way through ranks upon ranks of less 
fortunately equipped individuals who had not his own 
happy faculty of acquiescence. As he once, many years 
later, remarked to that same Mark Wetherell: “The 
world belongs to those who can best adjust themselves to 
it. That’s the true secret of the art of living; but most 
people don’t know it.” 

In the present case he had but adjusted himself to the 
conventions of a more humane society than himself, and 
he remained quite comfortable. Admitting his own 
premise, and carrying it still further, one might say that 
the kitten had failed to adjust itself to circumstances— 
hence its discomfiture— But we grow diffuse— 

Left alone on the green bank of the pond, the two chil¬ 
dren watched their playmate’s departure in silence. Then 
the little girl, still sobbing, sank down on the grass and 
began gently to dry the kitten with the skirt of her brown 
gingham frock. The kitten, after drawing its claws in 
one ungrateful scratch across the little girl’s bare right 
arm, settled down in her lap with a contented shiver. 

Occupied, the girl—Marian Pritchard was her name— 
paid no more heed to the departing Donald; but the boy, 
Mark Wetherell, continued to gaze after him. A thought¬ 
ful frown of regret was deepening on his forehead. 

7 


MANY WATERS 


“It's no use trying to fight him,” he said, “he won’t 

fight.” .... 

Marian looked up for an instant from her ministrations. 

“Why not? Is he afraid?” 

Mark shook his head. 

“No,” he said truthfully, “he isn’t afraid. It isn’t that. 
He could lick me easy,” a painful honesty flushed his 
cheeks, “and he knows it. That’s why he wouldn’t fight. 
It—it was I who was afraid.” The colour deepened on 
his cheeks and he dropped his eyes. 

“No, you weren’t,” the little girl flashed back at him. 
“You weren’t at all afraid! You weren’t! Anyway, 
you would have fought him if he’d been willing to and 
that shows you’re braver, or, at least, just as brave as 
he is.’’ 

“But—but I couldn’t really have made him give up 
the cat,” persisted the boy with honesty. “Not if he’d 
really meant to keep it, and—and if he’d landed me 
one.” 

“He couldn’t have hit you,” the little girl reminded him 
with satisfaction, “without dropping the cat. And then 
I should have grabbed it and run. So you see we should 
have won after all.” 

“That’s true.” Mark brightened. “But I’m glad I 
didn’t have to, all the same. It was beastly for the kitten, 
of course, but I like Donald. I think he’s wonderful,” 
he added in a blushing admission. 

A voice from the shrubbery near them cut short the 
other child’s response. 

“Master Mark, will you come in and have some tea with 
Mrs. Callender and Master Donald? They’re waiting for 
you now up at the house. Mrs. Callender sent me down to 
fetch you. She telephoned the rectory and they said you 
might stay. You’re to come at once, please.” 

8 


MANY WATERS 


Mark turned, and the little girl looked up; then slowly 
rose to her feet, lifting the kitten in her arms. 

The hard, rather pinched features, of the Callenders’ 
housemaid confronted them above her crisp black dress 
and stiffly starched apron. Her eyes were small and 
greedy like the eyes of a rodent. Mark glanced reflectively 
from her to the child beside him. Reading his unspoken 
thought the maid hastily spoke : 

“At once, please, Master Mark! Tea’s already on the 
table. Mrs. Callender said nothing about the little girl. 
She can run along now, I expect. I’m sure she’s been 
around here long enough, haven’t you, child ? Do come, 
now. Master Donald is waiting.” She compressed her 
lips formidably. 

Oppressed with the superiority of age and the air of 
command, Mark yielded and joined the woman. Marian, 
with the kitten in her arms, stood staring after them. The 
hard-faced maid waved an admonitory hand at her from 
a distance. 

“There now, run along, do!—We wants none of the 
likes of you about,” she added under her breath. 

2 

The child, left alone, silently watched them out of sight 
around the screen of shrubbery. Then, very slowly, she 
turned, and slipping dexterously through a gap in the 
hedge, made her way along the edge of the park, emerging 
onto the main road at some little distance from the pond. 
Cutting across this road at right angles she climbed a low 
stone wall into an unused meadow, whence a field path led 
her presently to a bridge across a narrow stream beyond 
which rose the vine-covered walls of the modest cottage 
which was her home, and beyond them the stables, more 
extensive by far than the house. 

9 


MANY WATERS 


She paused on the bridge for a moment to watch the 
black angular flies skating on the surface of the water and 
the thin waving grasses stirred by some invisible current 
underneath. 

Still unhurriedly she opened and passed through the 
little wicket gate which separated the cottage garden from 
the outer world, walked up the neat gravelled path to the 
house, and, avoiding the front door with its columns of 
twining roses, followed the meandering gravel bordered 
with sweet alyssum, around to the side of the house. 
Here, selecting a warm corner of the porch where the 
sun struck full, she deposited the kitten, which, warmed 
and dried, tucked its paws contentedly beneath its body 
and, quite satisfied, went to sleep. 

With a little sigh, perhaps at the lack of attachment 
apparent in the cat, Marian left it. The porch door, open¬ 
ing directly into the dining room was, as usual, unlatched. 
She entered and closed the door methodically after 
her. 

The room was rather dark, for the blinds on the side 
towards the sun had been pulled down. Marian blinked 
for a moment in the uncertain light after the brilliant out- 
of-doors. It was cool here, but oppressive, as if the room 
lacked airing. 

Her mother was standing at the sideboard hastily par¬ 
taking of a belated luncheon of sardine sandwiches and 
ginger beer. Her eyes turned towards the little girl as she 
entered, but otherwise she took no cognizance of her 
presence. She was busy pouring out the frothy ginger 
beer. 

Marian looked at her mother. She was dressed, as 
usual, in her riding habit, the skirt wrapped about her 
rather gaunt form. She had not troubled to hook the 
skirt into place, but held it there with the tip of her elbow. 

io 


MANY WATERS 


She had taken off her hat, and her hair, knotted in a tight 
braid at the nape of her neck and tied with a black ribbon, 
gave, without the hat, a foolishly juvenile look to her head. 
Her hands, long and slim, grasped the sandwich. 

Marian regarded her mother studiously, gravely. It 
was rather as if she had never seen her before. 

Mrs. Pritchard turned back to the sideboard to pour 
herself another glass of the ginger beer; and Marian ob¬ 
served the sharp line of her profile against the window 
blind; the hawklike nose, high-bridged, aristocratic; the 
expressive, deep-set black eyes, above the thin line of lips 
and the teeth that stuck out ever so little. 

Elaine Pritchard took a deep draught of the ginger 
beer and finished off the last sandwich. “Gad! but I’m 
tired,” she announced abruptly. “I’ve half a mind not to 
go out again, so long as it’s not necessary. It’s no joke 
trying to teach stupid children to ride all day.” The re¬ 
mains of the ginger beer followed the sandwich. “Awk¬ 
ward little pigs!” she added. 

Marian said nothing. She knew it was hard work be¬ 
ing a riding teacher and giving riding lessons all day. She 
had heard it pronounced so very often. So she said noth¬ 
ing and seated herself on the arm of one of the dining¬ 
room chairs. She felt dispirited, unhappy; a sense of the 
futility of life suddenly overwhelmed her. It is a feeling 
which youth has no business to know. Vaguely, the 
mother sensed a lack of energy in the child, observed the 
dim traces of tears about her eyes. 

“Where’ve you been?” she asked sharply. 

“Playing.” The child turned away, instinctively hid¬ 
ing her hurt. 

“Who with?” 

Marian sighed. She always hated these cross-examina¬ 
tions which ended in nothing. She was strangely sensi- 
ii 


MANY WATERS 


tive, craving a little tenderness—understanding. In spite 
of herself the tears came back into her eyes. The woman 
at the sideboard noticed them and for a moment her own 
eyes softened. 

‘‘What’s the matter?” she asked brusquely. “Has any 
one been saying anything to you?” 

The child shook her head. She could not trust herself 
to speak just then. If only her mother would take her in 
her arms for a moment, hold her close as she had seen 
Mark’s mother hold him— But that, of course, was 
absurd! 

Mrs. Pritchard looked down at her gloves and crop 
which she had started to gather up from the bare table. 
There was something slightly confused about her manner. 
It may have been that she guessed the child’s need and 
felt herself inadequate to deal with it. Perhaps she, too, 
longed for a closer rapprochement, a meeting on some 
more emotional terms; but the years and her own tem¬ 
perament had placed a barrier between them which she 
could not bridge. Time had but confirmed her in the con¬ 
viction that she had given all that was in her of love and 
affection to one person in the world. As water will some¬ 
times concentrate in one deep, unfathomable well, leaving 
the surrounding land dry and striated, so her emotional 
life had flowed into one channel. In her absorption she 
had neglected or refused to acknowledge the existence of 
other ties. As impossible for her to take this child of 
hers to her heart as to change her stature; and yet she was 
not a bad mother. 

Possibly the ache of thwarted motherhood tried her as 
severely as the apparent lack of affection tried the child. 
At all events, sensing a difficult situation, she avoided 
Marian’s eyes and repeated her question: 

“Who have you been playing with?” 

12 


MANY WATERS 


“Mark and Donald,” Marian answered over her 
shoulder from the shadow of the window seat whither 
she had retired. 

Elaine got rid of the uncomfortable sense of having 
failed the child by assuming a responsibility in regard to 
her playmates. 

“I’d rather you played with Donald than with Mark. 
It will mean more for you later on—socially, I mean.” It 
did not occur to her that Marian could not follow this line 
of reasoning. Elaine Pritchard always talked to her 
that way—as if the child were grown up. She had no 
proper understanding of what childhood means. “They 
didn’t think to ask you in to tea, I suppose.” 

Marian shook her head. Instinctively again she hid 
the true account. 

Elaine slipped the napkin she had not used back into 
the drawer of the sideboard and picked up her hat from 
the chair where it lay. 

“Oh, they wouldn’t think of it, of course. People never 
do any of the nice things they might. I was in hopes you 
might have got a bite to eat up there. It would have 
helped out a lot to-day. I’ve finished up everything here.” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

The child sat in the window seat, her chin cupped in 
her hand, gazing out through the half-closed shutters 
where the blind had been raised a little. Elaine stood look¬ 
ing perplexedly at the empty ginger beer bottle. 

“I couldn’t get home at lunchtime—too busy. And Ted 
had his lunch at Jerrold’s in the village. You didn’t have 
any, I suppose?” 

The child shook her head. 

“I’m sorry. What a nuisance they didn’t invite you in 
to have something up at the Hall. However, there’s some 
cold chicken in the ice chest.” Her brow cleared. “You 

13 


MANY WATERS 


might get yourself some of that if you’re hungry. I’ve 
got to go out now. I’ve promised Ted to be ready by 
half-past; it’s that now, and I’ve got to brush up my hair 
a bit. Just find yourself something out in the kitchen, 
won’t you? That’s a good girl. And you might carry 
those dishes out for me, if you will. If you see Ted, tell 
him I’ll be with him in a jiffy—She disappeared 
through the dining-room door. 

Left alone, the child drew her feet up on to the window 
seat. Somewhat hungry when she came in, her appetite 
seemed to have gone suddenly. She would have liked a 
little luncheon if her mother had had time to sit down with 
her while she ate it, but she didn’t want anything alone. 
It wasn’t that kind of hunger. 

She ran the blind up a little further and knelt on the 
hard cushions, feeling, somehow, very small and neglected, 
and gazed out into the sunshine of the little cottage garden. 
From her place she could just see the kitten’s grey head 
sleepily curled on its forepaws, but even that sight failed 
to rouse her. She wondered dispassionately what would 
ultimately become of the little thing. She wouldn’t be 
allowed to keep it, of course. It wouldn’t do on account 
of the dogs. And after all she was fond of the dogs. 
She must go out presently and make sure that they were 
locked up in the stable yard where they wouldn’t find the 
kitten. And perhaps Mrs. Jerrold in the village would take 
the cat for her. They had recently lost their old tortoise 
shell she knew—and Mrs. Jerrold was so kind-hearted. 
Or there was old Mr. Horner who might need one— 

There was Ted Chamberlayne in the drive outside, 
standing at the heads of the two horses. She thought of 
opening the window and calling to him that her mother 
would be down directly, but the window wouldn’t open 
easily and so she gave it up. What was the use to say 

14 


MANY WATERS 


her mother would be right there when she would be right 
there! Her mother had said she’d be down in a jiffy; 
and Ted never seemed to mind waiting. 

Besides, she didn’t feel like talking with Ted to-day. 
Not that he ever said much; but she dreaded, with the 
acute self-conscious dread of childhood, being questioned 
again about that missed tea up at the Hall. And she felt 
tired—tired of everything, of the dogs and the horses and 
the eternal stable talk—even tired of handsome Ted 
Chamberlayne; tired of his good looks, his broad hat and 
his interminable leggings and riding togs. Why didn’t 
he ever wear other clothes ? Her mother, now, occasion¬ 
ally slipped into an evening dress, relic of other days, or 
went shopping in town clad in a street frock and hat like 
other people, but Ted never! Always the same putties, 
grey hunting breeches, homespun coat and wide hat! She 
even knew the insides of his pockets: the fat, gold hunting- 
case watch that his father had given him and the little 
cross he carried, tucked away inside his vest pocket, that 
he had won in the South African War. It used to thrill 
her, that cross, but to-day she didn’t care about that either. 
For it had come to her, in the faintest of suspicions, and 
with a meaning which she couldn’t in the least compre¬ 
hend, that in some inscrutable way Ted Chamberlayne 
was responsible for her not being wanted up at “the Hall,” 
that being the somewhat pretentious name they gave to 
Donald’s house on the hill. 

Ted turned towards the house with a look of enquiry, 
and Marian waved tentatively, but he evidently couldn’t 
see her through the closed window. After all, she was 
fond of Ted. She started up to go around by the door 
and deliver her message; but at that moment Elaine 
Pritchard ran down the stairs and out of the house by the 
front entrance, slamming the door behind her. Her eyes 

15 


MANY WATERS 


had the peculiar light which she kept for Ted alone, as 
he turned towards her and helped her to mount. 

In another moment he was on his own horse and trotting 
beside her down the drive. Marian watched them out of 
sight. Her mother did not look back, but Marian could 
hear her high-pitched voice remonstrating with Ted over 
some question of the horses all the way out to the main 
road. 

3 

Marian carried the soiled sandwich plate and beer bottle 
out into the kitchen. She made certain that the dogs, 
Pompey, Tags and Beppo, were safe in the stable yard; 
and then retired to her own little room upstairs—a cool 
little room with a dormer window facing the front garden, 
filled with the scent of roses and often with the sound of 
the surf beating on Hodder’s beach, a hard, flat, sandy 
stretch of shore of some length; for the cottage stands 
midway between Whitridge village and the Hall, and 
Whitridge itself, that neat little New England village, is 
less than a mile from the sea. 

The road which runs past the lower gate of the Hall 
grounds—not the road that passes the cottage—leads in a 
direct line to Thornton, a town of some size and the 
county seat. It is, in fact, a thriving little city of which 
Whitridge sometimes pretentiously claims to be a suburb. 

Beyond Whitridge in the other direction, the road runs 
down close to the sea in irregular windings past high, un¬ 
dulating sand dunes covered with coarse grass, past the 
salt marshes and the low headland with its surmounting 
life-saving station and a few surrounding cottages, on, in 
a wide curve, to the clustered houses that form the village 
of Tonomet—considerably smaller and quainter than its 
companion village of Whitridge. It is a sleepy, unambi- 

16 


MANY WATERS 


tious little place, full at all times of elderly fishermen and 
retired sea dogs who sit about on the rotted old wharves 
and tell each other sea tales of a past day—tales as racy and 
hearty as themselves in their prime. 

Boats go out from Tonomet still, but they are poor 
things compared with those of the old days; for Tonomet 
has lost much of its ancient grandeur. Yet there lingers 
about it still the flavour of romance, a mixed flavour of 
salt fish and the “beauty and mystery of ships,” of high 
adventure and the unforgotten toll of the sea, which 
Whitridge, in its comparative newness, lacks and, char¬ 
acteristically, mocks at. For Whitridge thinks rather well 
of itself and of little Tonomet—that village with the 
heathenish name, as Mrs. Jerrold of the “Eagle,” in 
Whitridge, will often speak of it, with, at best, an amused 
tolerance. It knows its superiority; for is it not just that 
much nearer to Thornton and therefore to the advantages 
of a city? 

Thus all the older children of Whitridge go in daily to 
the Thornton High School, in large busses run at suitable 
hours for that purpose, whereas the children of Tonomet 
must do the best they can with the educational offerings of 
old Mr. Horner of Whitridge; the only alternative being 
the arrival by private conveyance, and at an outrageous 
hour, to meet the Whitridge bus—a feat remarkably few 
of the Tonomet children have ever been known to accom¬ 
plish. There are, of course, innumerable other advantages 
in being a Whitridgeite. Indeed, it should be well under¬ 
stood that the reader’s sympathy and interest are expected 
to centre in that village, even though we allow the occa¬ 
sional picturesqueness of Tonomet. 

But let us get back to Marian, whom we left in her little 
upper room at the cottage. 

She had stopped in the sitting-room on her way to gather 
17 


MANY WATERS 


up her two favourite books. She had read neither of them, 
but she chose them for their pictures, with which she con¬ 
nected some story of her own originating. One was The 
Vicar of Wakefield ; the other, which she now opened, was 
Dombey and Son, one of an old drab-covered edition with 
illustrations by “Phiz”; the picture which particularly fas¬ 
cinated her being the one of Florence and Edith Dombey 
on the staircase. The dark, tragic beauty of the runaway 
wife thrilled her; the ringlets; the hands that held off 
the other’s impetuous advance; the great handsome stair¬ 
case with wide, flat treads leading up to the half-glimpsed 
beauty of rooms above; all these things had never failed to 
awaken her imagination. Her interest in, and love for it 
dated back to the days before she and her mother had 
come to live in Whitridge, to the time when they lived 
at home with her father and Aunt Julia, when she herself 
was a tiny tot. 

She tried to-day once more to plan a story to suit the 
picture. They used to amuse her—these exercises in 
imagination; but now the spell seemed to have been broken. 
She could get little pleasure out of them. She closed the 
book at last impatiently. 

She tried getting out her dolls and setting them all in a 
row along the wall below the dormer window, but the joy 
of these was gone, too. She was getting old for dolls. 
And on a sudden impulse she determined to put them all 
away, to pack them up and send them out of her life— 
forever. 

It was a wrench; it took courage. “It’s for good,” she 
told herself as she kissed them good-bye, one by one. The 
farewells made her very sad. The sun had almost set by 
the time she had finished. 

She went to the window and stood looking out at the 
drooping garden. The dolls were all packed away now. 

18 


MANY WATERS 

Was it this that made her so unhappy? Or the remem¬ 
brance of Donald’s treatment of the grey kitten and of 
Mark’s defection? Undoubtedly her idols were falling. 

She was very pensive for a long time. Then she 
heard the voices of her mother and Ted Chamberlayne 
riding back up the drive in the deepening shadows. 

Marian brushed away the threatening teardrops; with 
a quick, defiant tilt of her firm little chin—as firm and 
finely moulded as Ted Chamberlayne’s own—she turned 
from the window and slowly went down the stairs to 
meet them. 


CHAPTER II 


i 

T HE betrayal of bedroom confidences is always out 
of order. The repetition of such intimate con¬ 
versations by the omniscient author, whether 
driven thereto by indigence, the pertinacity of creditors or 
the obvious needs of the story, can never be regarded as 
in anything but the worst possible taste. It is a thing 
revolting in itself, despicable, unmanly—the poking of 
inquisitive noses into private apartments under the guise 
and semblance of literary curiosity, of intellectual research 
—Pah! the thing is too palpable, too crude—on the face of 
it a trumpery excuse not worthy the reader’s credence! 

Yet since your humble servant (whose want of craft 
tries him as much as yourself), since, I say, he knows no 
more dignified method of putting certain situations suc¬ 
cinctly before you in order to tell his miserable tale, we 
must crave a thousand pardons. Let us to it, then, that 
it may be the sooner over and the bad odour of our indis¬ 
cretions linger no longer than is necessary in the nostrils of 
our more fastidious readers. 

Picture to yourself, then, the handsome house of Colonel 
Peter Callender, known as “The Hall,” handsomest in 
the village or out of it, handsomer even than the houses in 
Thornton, standing alone on its spacious hill some two 
miles removed from the village proper; with a splendid 
sweep of drive—stone gate-posted, maple-lined and grav¬ 
elled up to its impressive front door, with stables and all 

20 


MANY WATERS 

the appurtenances thereto sloping away again down the 
hill at the rear. 

Picture to yourself a room in this house, on the second 
floor, not the largest, but by all odds the most attractive 
room in this most splendid of houses—Mrs. Callender’s 
own sitting-room, or—as she prefers to call it, and vainly 
endeavours to persuade others to speak of it—her boudoir. 

Naturally it is all that such a room should be. There 
is a dressing table (a French importation) of marquetry 
inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There is a divan such as 
a princess might use, deep and soft, heaped with rose- 
coloured cushions. There is a large rug covering the 
entire floor, soft grey in colour, to match the walls which 
are panelled in the same tint. 

And on the walls there are pictures. Not just pic¬ 
tures such as you and I know them—a reproduction of 
Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy,” for instance, or mayhap, if 
your taste is a bit Victorian (conservatively so—I speak 
in no derogatory sense), a Watts’ “Hope” sitting quite 
despondent atop her barren world—done in sepia and 
neatly framed in mahogany to match the tone of the paper 
—or even, if you happen to be somewhat more prosperous, 
a modern painting or two by some deserving, though as yet 
uncelebrated, artist. No, I repeat, not pictures such as you 
and I know them, not pictures as decorations for walls, 
but Pictures with a big P, and a big, a very big, price 
attached, as poor Colonel Callender’s cheque book would 
show. 

Over there on the left wall, for instance, there is a very 
small Whistler which must have stood him in for a 
pretty penny. It represents a lady clad in filmy white and 
bending very far back—almost dangerously far back— 
against a background of spurting fireworks; very eccen¬ 
tric—indeed, the lady appears to be in some peril—never- 

21 


MANY WATERS 


theless, as its owner would point out to you, there is 
apparent the Whistler touch, and, in full sight, the 
Whistler butterfly. 

Downstairs, of course, in the great double drawing¬ 
rooms there are more treasures; but only two or three 
here. So much the better; there speaks the good taste 
of their owner! And no one could deny Clara Callender 
the compliment of having taste. It was her supreme vir¬ 
tue, the aim and ideal which she had set before herself 
from her youth onward. 

In the furnishing and adornment of the room in ques¬ 
tion it was shown to a degree. In only one detail had she 
lapsed; that was in the matter of photographs. On the 
mantelpiece a large framed photograph of Colonel Callen¬ 
der in uniform; on the lacquer table by the window another 
(equally large) of Major Robinson, Mrs. Callender’s 
father—an elderly gentleman with a severe yet aristocratic 
countenance (its companion picture, a too exact likeness 
of his late wife, simply had to be banished some six years 
ago when the widowed Major died) ; and no less than 
twelve representations of her son Donald, at ages ranging 
from a rather dim photograph taken at six weeks, tucked 
away on a corner of the dressing table, to an enlarged 
kodak snapshot of a few weeks back; and exclusive of the 
charmingly painted miniature, done when the boy was 
nine, which makes him out a blond angel. Indeed, the 
artist all but painted a halo over the devotionally raised 
head. It occupies the place of honour on the side wall just 
under the Whistler. 

The boudoir, with its soft rose-and-grey colourings 
should have harboured only peace. The very words rose 
and grey suggest it. Nevertheless, on this occasion, it did 
not. Peace had hidden her head and spread her wings 
and departed hurriedly some moments before; and rancour 

22 


MANY WATERS 


reigned in her stead. The soft grey rug was being given a 
sort of rapid and unaccustomed massage by the great 
shuffling feet of the big Colonel himself, as he stamped 
energetically up and down the length of the room; the 
smooth, grey-panelled walls echoed with the clarion trum¬ 
pet of his wrath voiced in choleric protest. Yes, Colonel 
Peter Callender himself is speaking when we (very in¬ 
discreetly) come upon them. His wife, the visual counter¬ 
part of an early Christian martyr enduring torture, is sit¬ 
ting at her dressing table, hands tight clasped in her lap, 
white teeth biting her thin pale lips, as, in his thundering 
passage to and fro, the Colonel pauses, from time to time, 
to throw her the forceful expression of his disap¬ 
proval : 

“And I tell you she shall be allowed to come! And as 
often as she likes. And asked, too. I’ll have none of 
this nonsense around my place. She’s a nice child. As 
nice a little girl as I’ve ever seen. Straight and fair; well 
behaved, too! A good influence for the boy. He and 
young Mark Wetherell are getting too wild. Tone ’em 
down a bit. Just what they need at this time—” 

Clara Callender raised her eyes, dull with resentment, 
for a moment, and glanced at her husband. 

“And what of the stories we hear?’’ 

“Piff!” the Colonel exploded in his rage. “A fine 
pack of servants’ gabble and backstairs’ gossip. I wonder 
you listen to it.” 

Clara Callender bit her pale lips again until they showed 
red under the thin skin. 

“You forget that my information came from my 
sister.” 

The Colonel stopped his striding walk long enough to 
ejaculate: 

“Fiddlesticks! The more shame to her! Anyway, it’s 
23 


MANY WATERS 


preposterous to discriminate against the child on account 
of some supposed foolishness on the part of the mother. 
It isn’t the mother I’m asking you to be decent to. May be 
no truth in the whole story, anyhow. Your sister always 
was a busybody. Like as not she’s got the people all 
mixed up. Been better occupied to mind her own business. 
Dare say it’ll all turn out to be a pack of lies. How can she 
tell who the woman is ? Besides, that’s got nothing to do 
with the child. I say she’s a nice child and ought to come 
here oftener. And damme! I mean she shall!” 

Clara Callender, a tall, delicate-featured creature with 
fair hair, pale skin and the indomitable mouth of those 
who inevitably get their own way, again raised her eyes 
to his face; blue eyes with pale lashes, like faded replicas 
of Donald’s; surprise evident in her arched brows and the 
faint pucker of her mouth. She shrugged slightly and 
threw out her hands in a gesture, almost plaintive, of 
capitulation. 

“Very well. As you like. I’m sure I’ve never said 
she wasn’t to come. I’ve scarcely seen the child; never 
said two words to her myself. I’ve never asked her here, 
and I’ve certainly never sent her home. I don’t know why 
you should think she has been.” 

“Been what?” 

“Sent home.” 

“Damn it! I tell you it myself!” 

Mrs, Callender sighed. In this mood she knew it was 
better to humour her husband. He could be so nasty, 
and she detested scenes. They always gave her headaches. 
Yes, it would be better to agree with him now, for, after 
all, she could do as she liked in the matter later. He was 
like that, the Colonel, keen on a subject for a time, terribly 
keen, but he forgot easily. Once give him his own way 
and there was no great danger of the thing being brought 

24 


MANY WATERS 


up again unless the disobedience was flagrant, and she 
could guard against that. 

“As you like,” she said again, with the air of having 
had her duty too plainly pointed out to her: “I’ll instruct 
the servants as to your wishes.” 

Peter Callender stood in the centre of the grey rug 
and frowned. He had rather braced himself for a firmer 
resistance, and her reply left him off his poise. He 
“hawed” and “hemmed” as was his wont when embar¬ 
rassed, and then brought out: 

“You needn’t tell ’em—the servants, I mean. That’s 
no way to go about it. That’d only call attention to the 
child. It’s what I’m complaining of. There ought to be 
no difference made between her and the others—Wether- 
ell’s boy, for instance. He comes here often enough.” 

Again Mrs. Callender sighed. “Very well. But I don’t 
see what it is you want me to do. As I say, I’ve scarcely 
seen the child to speak to myself; but if you don’t want me 
to instruct the servants, and yet complain if they’re not 
told—” Her tone was of one who suffers greatly with 
the forbearance worthy of a saint. 

The Colonel tapped his foot impatiently. 

“You might tell the one I have in mind not to inter¬ 
fere.” 

“You mean Martha?” meekly plaintive. 

“I mean that damned squint-eyed one,” Callender broke 
out impatiently. He knew that Clara knew which one of 
the maids he meant. The hard-featured Martha was his 
pet abomination; and with the contrariness of womankind, 
Clara chose particularly to favour and pamper her above 
the others of the household. 

The offended wife reached for the bottle of toilet 
water on her dressing table and ostentatiously bathed her 
temples. This would undoubtedly mean a headache before 

25 


MANY WATERS 


night if it kept up much longer. Aloud she said, in a 
tone that sounded conciliatory on the surface, but was 
meant to irritate: 

“I am sure Martha never presumes.” 

“But I tell you I caught her myself—sending the child 
home. Damned disagreeable and unpleasant she was, too. 
She’d no right to say who should play with Donald and 
who shouldn’t.” He began his impatient stride once 
more. 

“I think you must have exaggerated it.” 

“I tell you I heard her. If I hadn’t been engaged with 
Hayley at the time I’d have gone after the little tike and 
brought her back myself. Blessed if I wouldn’t!” 

“But you didn’t,” she remarked icily. 

“No,” he mumbled. “But if it happens again I shall. 
Damme! if I won’t!” 

Mrs. Callender reached for the bell beside her table 
with an air of finality. 

“It won’t happen again, I assure you. And now, if 
you’re quite through with me—if you’ve said all you wish 
to on the subject—it’s really of so little importance after 
all—I’ll have Martha in to brush my hair as I had planned 
before this—this outburst.” 

She paused enquiringly with her hand raised, poised 
above the bell. But Peter Callender did not mean to be 
dismissed without a final word. 

“She’s a damned sweet, pretty little girl! Fit as any 
one to play with that young scamp of ours. It’s a 
shame for us to act like a pair of self-righteous fools 
in the matter. Just because her mother may or may 
not have run away with that good-looking rascal of a 
groom—” 

“Quite,” she interrupted coldly. Her eyes, faintly ironi¬ 
cal, ran over her husband’s burly figure blocked in the 

26 


MANY WATERS 


doorway. “Perhaps you would like me to call on the lady? 
We might have much in common.” 

It was a telling stroke. No one was more proud or 
more jealous of his wife’s reputation that Peter Callender. 
It was his firm conviction that she was purer than other 
women; a horror to him that she should ever be sullied 
by the least contact with a more sordid atmosphere than 
that with which he had always surrounded her. In a way 
he was right. With her delicate elegance and thin asceti¬ 
cism, nature intended her for an old maid. But mistakes 
like these are sometimes made. 

Peter paused and looked at her, cold and indomitable; 
and for a moment he felt the subtle instinct, almost of 
hate, into which years of misunderstanding and thwarted 
emotion had turned his feeling for her. He had loved 
her and married her in the face of violent opposition, with 
the perverse doggedness of a man who wants, and wants 
vigorously—whether it be for his good or no. Indeed, 
even at the time he was courting her, subconsciously he 
had known they were unsuited to one another; and it had 
but increased his desire. He felt that she was different, 
rarer, fashioned out of other material than the common 
lot; altogether a finer clay. He had felt it and still 
persevered in his suit, aware of his own coarseness by 
comparison. As if she resented his ultimate victory, she 
had never ceased to make him conscious of this inferiority. 
To-day she toyed with his impotence to combat it. 

“Perhaps that is what you wish—that I call at the cot¬ 
tage ?” 

Colonel Callender looked up from under knit brows. 

“I’ve not said that. It isn’t a question of the grown¬ 
ups at all. God knows, if there’s anything wrong, I don’t 
want you mixed up with it!” 

“Oh!” she said, and smiled sweetly. 

27 



MANY WATERS 

And so, defeated in the end, Peter Callender strode 
from the room. 


2 

The church of “St. Peter’s by the Sea” stands on the 
high headland below Hodder’s Beach, overlooking the 
broad reaches of the north Atlantic. It is an inconvenient 
location for the villagers of Whitridge, but its founders 
could not resist the picturesqueness of the surroundings, 
so there it was placed, a little above the clustered cottages 
around the life-saving station, and full in the blasts that 
in winter sweep across the sea and buffet in vain but angry 
remonstrance against its iron-studded door and sturdy 
stone sides. 

It is an attractive little building, full of a romantic charm 
quite unusual to the churches of the neighbourhood. 
Squat and rugged, crowning the headland, limned against 
a fiery sunset as it was on that far-off autumn day when 
the Reverend Paul Wetherell first saw it, or in summer 
with a background of hazy blue, the sea spread out before, 
and the long line of the sand dunes to the right, with be¬ 
yond them the salt marshes rich in rosy hues, it is a thing 
of infinite loveliness. Then the Reverend Paul loves it 
devotedly and would exchange it for no other parish in 
the world. 

But in the winter it is a different matter. Then the 
drawbacks become evident. As the days advance and the 
cold increases, a congregation, small at the best of times, 
dwindles of a Sunday morning to a mere handful. Only 
the sturdiest can buffet their way against the wind up the 
r,ocky path in the open, with the wires of the life-saving 
station creaking below. Mark Wetherell, the rector’s son, 
had even known times when his father and he had held 
service alone in the shuddering draughts of an empty 

28 


MANY WATERS 


church, after an hour’s struggle through the storm. For 
the Reverend Paul Wetherell was one who never deviated 
by a hair’s breadth from his duty. 

The rectory is at some little distance; just on the out¬ 
skirts of the village, at the end of Whitridge’s long main 
street; a quiet, comfortable-looking house, low-roofed, set 
well back in a garden of old-fashioned flowers, hollyhocks, 
geraniums and the like, and well shaded with trees, so that 
in summer the house is quite dark, almost sombre in effect. 
Here the Reverend Paul has lived for the past eighteen 
years. 

“Dominie Wetherell,” as most of the villagers call him 
(for there are few of his own faith in Whitridge), “the 
Rector,” as Mrs. Wetherell always speaks of him, an odd, 
silent man with lightning flashes of intellectual vigour and 
a curious obtuseness in matters of humanity, is not the 
best liked man in the village. 

For this the Reverend Paul is scarcely to be held re¬ 
sponsible. No man could be more earnest, sincere, more 
selfless in his devotion to the interests of his people; but 
the very qualities which stand out most prominently in his 
nature are the ones which, in his eighteen years’ incum¬ 
bency and contact with his parishioners, have failed to 
gain him the affection and trust he had hoped for. 

He began full of hope, as all young clergymen do; but 
he was, in the first place, a scholar, and while he was 
sufficiently practical to realise that his parishioners could 
not be expected to possess like attainments, he was un¬ 
able to understand that they would not have a scholar’s 
viewpoint and attitude towards the things of everyday 
life. More than that he was a man preoccupied with a 
strange inward struggle of which the world understood 
nothing; not the commonplace struggle of the ascetic with 
the things of the flesh, but a moral struggle against a foe 

29 


MANY WATERS 

more insidious. Men thought him taciturn, unapproach¬ 
able; he was, in truth, a disappointed man. 

He had known himself capable of rising’ to great 
heights, yet something of which he was vaguely conscious 
held him back—a sort of spiritual laziness which united 
with his quite unusual fund of nervous energy to over¬ 
throw his intentions. At times he would attribute it to 
unattained ambition; but in his heart he knew that this 
was not the truth, realising that “the fault is not in our 
stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” In many 
an hour of prayerful vigil he had told himself that this was 
so—that the fault was within. He had longed to go 
abroad preaching the gospel of Christ throughout the 
world, thrilling men with his eloquence, making converts 
among widely differentiated nations, holding dominion 
over them through the power of his Master; and instead 
he was but a country parson in an inconsequential, strug¬ 
gling New England parish; knowing himself, by his natu¬ 
ral gifts, worthy of greater things, and, with the zeal of 
a fanatic, struggling for the freedom of his soul. 

When these thoughts came he rebuked himself for his 
pride and arrogance. Instead of swaying souls he listened 
to the petty gossip of a country village; and writhed in 
his own inability to cut loose from it all. 

Why had he come here eighteen years ago ? Why had 
he stayed? Perhaps the waves beating below the cliffs 
had decided him when he stood upon the church steps 
on that autumn afternoon so long ago, and saw the sun¬ 
set like a vision of God’s handiwork in the sky. For 
he was a man sensitive to all forms of beauty. Perhaps 
it was only that spiritual laziness of which we have spoken, 
and which seemed to say, “Stay here; why look further 
for a field of endeavour ?” At all events, he had remained. 

With only one more word of explanation you have the 
30 


MANY WATERS 


man. His was a wonderful and surprising natural 
purity. It accounted in a large measure for his inflexible 
attitude towards evil, his unflinching denunciations and 
that lack of humanity of which the villagers were vaguely 
conscious, although they could give it no name. 

Only one person in all Whitridge understood him. Not 
even Mark, much as he loved his father, could do that. 
But, fortunately for the Reverend Paul, he was blessed 
with a wife who not only understood and sympathised 
with him, but who had the cleverness not to let him see 
that she did, and to hide her knowledge. 

Cynthia Wetherell was one of those rare spirits who 
know the world without being in the least worldly. Also, 
she was one of those women who exist wholly and un- 
questioningly for the men to whom they have given 
themselves. With this priceless devotion she combined 
infinite tact and a true sense of proportion. Upright as 
her husband, of a moral fibre equal, if not superior, to his, 
there yet existed in her a vein of hommonalty which 
enabled her on more than one occasion to guide and 
direct her husband’s energies, to smooth the road before 
him in many a rough spot. It was her constant aim to 
shield him; to stand as a buffer between him and the 
world. But handicapped by her ill health this was not 
always possible. With perfect health, Cynthia Wetherell 
would have been a superwoman. As it was, she suffered 
under the most terrible disadvantages, A constitution 
naturally delicate had been all but spent in giving birth 
to her son, which event had occurred some five years after 
her marriage to the young, good-looking clergyman. 

Cynthia went with joy to her sacrifice. “My soul doth 
magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced,” she might 
have said with another mother, although the cost to her 
was all but life itself. She never recovered; living in a 
3i 


MANY WATERS 


state of semi-invalidism; so that Mark early in life 
learned the restrictions and demands of a sick room, the 
need for treading softly and speaking in whispers; knew 
wakeful nights passed by his father’s side in an agony of 
suspense, or, curled up in his father’s study, kept vigil 
through dark hours. 

But Cynthia Wetherell was in spirit no weakling, and 
she saw to it that in her hours of comparative health and 
freedom from pain Mark should have the normal life 
of a strong healthy boy. When she was feeling fit he 
might be as noisy as he pleased, filling the house with his 
playmates, leading his “gang” upstairs and down, in 
and out of the old rectory. Thus in alternating storm and 
sunshine Mark grew under her tender care and guidance 
into a normal, healthy, sturdy little boy. He was known 
in the village as “a likable little chap,” and he had an 
easy way of meeting people halfway that his father would 
have given much to possess. He was impetuous and dar¬ 
ing, but nobody had ever seen him in a temper. Cynthia 
adored him, looked on and smiled. She knew that Mark 
would be able to take care of himself and she was 
glad. 

But for Paul, her husband, it was different. As far as 
lay in her power she must still stand between him and the 
sordid things of life. Even in that affair of the hand¬ 
some Mrs. Pritchard who had come to live in the cottage 
below the Callender estate, she had tried to spare him. 
He had never guessed that there was anything wrong 
until some yokel in the village meeting place, forget¬ 
ting the clergyman’s presence, had blurted out the gossip. 
The Reverend Paul came home white and shaking with 
offended sensibilities. His indignation first on the one side 
and then on the other was unlimited. 

“It’s a crime! a disgrace! Ben Nutting should be cen- 
32 


MANY WATERS 


sured for talking like that in a public place. It’s a fiendish 
thing, maligning a woman! I’ll not endure it! I wish 
I had spoken my mind to him at the time. I was weak to 
ignore it. I shall go to him later.” 

“But—but perhaps it may be true,” Cynthia ventured 
timidly. 

“What?” The Reverend Paul turned on her fiercely. 
“What do you mean ? Why do you say that ?” 

Cynthia sighed. “I was in hopes you would hear noth¬ 
ing about it. But I’m afraid there’s very little doubt. 
There’s been a good deal of talk. Ben Nutting is not 
the only one. People will say things, you know.” 

“Why? Because the woman is alone? Because she 
has no one to protect her good name?” 

“But you see that’s the trouble—she isn’t really alone.” 

“She is a married woman.” 

“There is certainly no husband apparent.” 

“She may be a widow.” 

“Yes, of course. But she doesn’t say she is. And some 
one sent down some papers—almost a year back, they 
were. Their pictures were in them—hers and the man 
she employs.” 

“That may be; it doesn’t prove anything.” 

The Reverend Paul turned away dissatisfied; but he was 
less sure than he had been. He returned to the attack 
several days later: 

“What am I to do about this woman in my parish who 
is giving cause for all this scandal?” 

“Must you do anything?” Cynthia’s tone was doubt¬ 
ful. She dreaded the inevitable struggle which she knew 
must come. 

“You knew of this thing,” he said. “Why did you not 
speak to me of it long ago?” It was as if he had read her 
inmost thoughts. 


33 


MANY WATERS 


“Yes, I knew. But I wanted to spare you. I knew 
you would feel it. I hoped you might never know.” 

“Why? Am I not here to attend the spiritual wants of 
my people ?” 

“But that is just it. This woman isn’t of your people; 
there is nothing to do.” 

The rector frowned. 

“I believe in a practical Christianity that does not 
recognise the restrictions of church or creed. The 
woman eloped with her groom. Aside from other con¬ 
siderations, shall I allow this insult to my parish to go un¬ 
heeded? What does it signify whether the woman attends 
my services or not?” 

“Wouldn’t it be best,” Cynthia suggested timidly, “not 
to notice it? I cannot see why you should be mixed up 
with it.” She disliked intensely the idea of Paul exposed 
to the inevitable indignation, perhaps the mockery, of 
this woman. She had never seen Elaine Pritchard herself, 
but she had heard tales of her from Mrs. Jerrold when the 
latter brought up to the rectory various delicacies for the 
invalid— “a hard-faced hussy,” Mrs. Jerrold had called 
her. 

“I believe,” repeated the rector in a stern tone, and a 
manner that was distinctly reminiscent of the one he used 
in the pulpit, “in a practical Christianity. If this woman 
is, in truth, living in sin, here in the midst of my parish, it 
is my duty to remonstrate with her. What difference 
whether she be of my congregation or no? Sin is sin 
whomsoever it is committed by, and immorality is im¬ 
morality !” 

“Ah, but who is to say that it is that?” Cynthia broke 
in hurriedly. “You don’t actually know anything. It 
may be all false, as you yourself once pointed out. And 
admitting that, think how you would feel?” 

34 


MANY WATERS 


“That is true.” 

The rector wavered. 

“And they have a right to live. So long as there is no 
public scandal—” 

“Bah! I hate those worldly sophistries!” 

But Cynthia knew she had conquered. She played her 
trump card. 

“It would get all over the village if you were to speak 
to her. And you know the woman has her living to make. 
Might there not be danger of injuring her? That, surely, 
is not a Christian thing to do.” 

“True, true.” 

“There is the little girl,” Cynthia pursued. “We might 
ask her to send the little girl to Sunday school.” 

The Reverend Paul Wetherell frowned. This sounded 
tame to him. He was for cleansing with whips of fire. 
But he knew Cynthia to be right. 

She saw her advantage and followed it up. 

“If we shun her we shall but set an example to others. 
The thing is deplorable, no doubt; but, after all, we know 
nothing of the temptations, the trials, the terrible circum¬ 
stances that may have led to this situation; and who are 
we to sit in judgment?” 

Her husband started. “You are right,” he said with 
sudden humility. “I am a Pharisee—a miserable Phari¬ 
see ! I will go to my study now and pray for forgiveness. 
How often you are right! I was a fool, but I will be 
guided by you.” 

Cynthia watched him go with tears in her eyes. She 
hated to see him like that, so contrite, so humble and he 
so good! It hardened her a little so that later she took 
courage to say: 

“It is agreed that no distinction shall be made about that 
little girl from the cottage, Paul, isn’t it? But I’d rather 

35 


MANY WATERS 


Mark did not go there. She may come here to play when¬ 
ever she likes. She is a sweet child and Mark likes her. 
Thus we shall not show approval of the cottage, but, on 
the other hand, we shall not be the first to cast a stone.” 

And her husband agreed as usual: “Right, quite right, 
my dear!” 

Thus it was that Marian kept her friends at both houses. 


CHAPTER III 


M OTHER, when may I learn to ride?” 

Across the cottage parlour Marian regarded 
her mother wistfully. The years fleeting by, 
flecked with sun and shadow, had changed the child of 
ten to the girl of thirteen. Taller, straighter, her lithe little 
figure still kept its boyish outlines; her eyes grey and clear 
as ever; her firm little chin, resolute, tilted, was the same; 
but all gave promise of greater beauty to come. A cloud 
of fair hair, like a halo, encircled her head and caught the 
light from the lamp in golden patches as she looked up 
enquiringly. 

“Mother, when may I learn to ride?” 

Elaine Pritchard looked at the girl thoughtfully, and 
bit a thread in two between her large, handsome teeth 
before she replied with a slight shrug: 

“Oh, in a year or two, I expect, if you care about it. 
Not now certainly. Eve bother enough with the others 
without trying to teach you to sit a horse.” 

“But I can stay on quite nicely already,” Marian 
hastened to explain. “Ted’s put me up on Beauty and led 
me around the stable yard lots of times. Haven’t you, 
Ted? And on grey Peter, too. I can sit well already. 
I’m sure I could learn awfully easily. I’m not afraid, you 
know.” 

“No, I don’t suppose a child of mine would ever be 

37 


MANY WATERS 


afraid of a horse,” replied her mother drily, and went 
on with her sewing, her eyes resting for a fleeting instant 
on the handsome profile of Ted Chamberlayne who sat 
directly across the table from her under the lamp, his eyes 
busy with the evening paper. 

Marian watched her mother silently, wistfully, for a 
time, hoping for some further encouragement of her 
hopes; but none was forthcoming. It seemed to her that 
this time her mother must understand and sympathise. 
The desire to ride had grown daily, almost hourly, with 
her, until of late it had become almost an obsession. It 
would be so easy, too, for her mother to grant the request, 
with all those horses about. Horses and dogs, indeed, 
appeared to be the only things plentiful about the cottage. 
But so far her mother had always refused the request 
proffered a number of times before, putting her off from 
week to week and month to month with the same excuse— 
she was too tired. It was wearisome enough teaching the 
others, the children she was paid to teach—or there wasn’t 
time, and she had trouble enough already. Marian recog¬ 
nised the force of these arguments. Her mother really 
worked very hard. With the majority of her pupils drawn 
from Thornton, it meant a lot of extra riding, for the 
children must usually be escorted home and the horses 
brought back. Her mother was in the saddle early and 
late; quite true that she had her hands full. 

Nevertheless, she wanted most desperately to learn to 
ride. 

Ted, when appealed to on the subject in the privacy of 
the stable yard, had been vaguely sympathetic, and on one 
or two occasions consented to act as coach for a short 
trot around the yard; but there was always the danger 
of these excursions being overseen and put a stop to or 
forbidden for the future; and there was the insuperable 

38 


MANY WATERS 


fact that the stable yard was too cramped for cantering, 
that most alluring of accomplishments. 

And to-night Ted said nothing to help her; so Marian 
was silent. Her mother stitched industriously on the black 
habit she was mending, a faint frown showing between 
her eyebrows. Ted Chamberlayne on the other side of 
the table continued to read his paper in complete absorp¬ 
tion. Marian watched her mother’s swiftly flying fingers 
and reflected on the black habit. It was odd that she 
always rode side-saddle when she taught. Ted had tried 
to persuade her out of it, but it was one of her affectations. 
Perhaps she knew how well she looked on a horse in that 
garb. 

After an interval, and in a pause while Elaine threaded 
a needle, the child spoke again. 

“Donald Callender has a new horse. Not a pony. He’s 
not to ride that any more. It’s a big horse this time; 
bigger than Mark’s Jacko. Mark is riding this year, 
too.’’ 

Her mother was silent, regarding the child speculatively. 

“I’d like to ride, too,” Marian added gently. “If I had 
a horse and could ride, we could all three go out together— 
Donald and Mark and me. It would be great fun.” 

Elaine put down the habit she was mending. Once 
again she cast a fleeting glance across the table at Ted 
Chamberlayne who, oblivious of the talk going on around 
him, was plodding systematically through the editorials, 
his handsome, stupid face as expressionless as usual. 

Finding no response to her half-interrogatory glance in 
that direction, her mother turned back to Marian. 

“You’d like to ride very much?” 

“Oh, so much, mother. Please say I may. I know I 
could learn in no time at all.” 

Elaine Pritchard snipped the last thread and folded up 

39 


MANY WATERS 


the mended habit. “Well, so you shall,” she agreed cheer¬ 
fully. “We’ll begin to-morrow with the small pony. I 
dare say I can slip you in between lessons. You’ll have to 
be ready to hop on whenever I happen to have time to give 
you. After I get you started, of course you might ride out 
with Ted a bit. I won’t have you seen on the roads, how¬ 
ever, until you’re quite perfect. I can’t afford to have 
you ride in a slovenly fashion, you understand.” 

“Oh, mother!” cried Marian joyfully. “May I really 
begin to-morrow? Quite—quite early?” 

“I dare say.” Elaine’s manner was remote. “We’ll 
have to fix you up a habit some way. Perhaps I can rig 
you out in one of mine for the present. Stand up.” She 
critically surveyed her daughter’s height and carriage. “I 
declare I didn’t know you were so tall. Yes, I dare say 
one of mine will do—so long as you don’t try walking 
about in it. I’m going to teach you to ride side-saddle first. 
After you’ve mastered that, perhaps it would be better 
for you to ride the other way. You can choose that your¬ 
self. But a woman’s got to be able to ride side-saddle to 
ride well. I’ll teach you to sit as none of those others 
can,” she added with rising enthusiasm. “You won’t be 
like those stupid little brats I’ve been training. You’ll 
see. I’ll make you the best horsewoman in the coun¬ 
try!” 

“Oh, mother!” Marian could only ejaculate again. 

“It’s little enough to do for you,” Elaine said carelessly. 
A slight frown settled on her forehead. “I only wish I 
Could mount you as you ought to be mounted. But that’s 
out of the question. However, there’s Pepina, she’s a de¬ 
cent little beast and a good size for you. She’ll carry you 
nicely. Not what you ought to have; but she’ll do. Her 
gait’s fair. Don’t you think so, Ted?” 

Ted Chamberlayne raised his mild brown eyes from the 
40 


MANY WATERS 


paper he was reading and stared at her for an instant, 
rather as though he had been asleep. 

“Eh, what’s that? What’d you say, Elaine? The 
mare’s all right, isn’t she ? I don’t think she’s at all lame.” 

“I said she’s the best nag we’ve got,” replied Elaine 
severely. Ted looked somewhat crushed. 

“And would do for Marian to ride later on. I’m going 
to teach her to ride. We’re going to start lessons with the 
pony to-morrow.” 

“Good idea,” agreed Ted as he turned back to his paper. 
“Never can start ’em too young. She’ll learn in no time. 
Take to it like a duck to water. Be a credit to you. Might 
bring you pupils.” 

“That’s what I was thinking,” Elaine remarked thought¬ 
fully; but it was not of that alone that she was thinking. 
What had influenced her more profoundly was the news 
of Donald Callender’s new horse. A new horse and Don¬ 
ald would be riding about the roads around Whitridge, 
more or less. Marian needed playmates. It might help 
the child. Poor child! And Elaine Pritchard’s eyes soft¬ 
ened for a moment as she looked at her daughter, and filled 
for just a second with quite unusual tears. 

2 

The manner in which Elaine Pritchard’s predictions 
were fulfilled and Marian came to ride with Donald Callen¬ 
der almost as often as she rode with Mark Wetherell, 
until they both went away to school, was characteristic of 
Peter Callender’s bluff heartiness. The way was simple ; 
the results various. But let the Colonel tell the story 
himself. 

Once more he is conversing with his wife, not in the 
privacy of the boudoir this time, but in the great drawing¬ 
room downstairs. Be patient with me if I introduce you 

4i 


MANY WATERS 

once more to an intimate conversation between husband 
and wife. 

The Colonel is not in a temper this time, and his rather 
rough voice rings with a new note, a note of real and 
somewhat surprised admiration. He has but lately re¬ 
turned from a visit to the Pritchard cottage and is full of 
his visit, entirely too full of it, Clara Callender thinks. 
But let us hear what he says: 

“I went down to the cottage. Nice little place it is. 
I’d forgotten what a little beauty spot it was. Haven’t 
set foot in it for years; not since that poor woman bought 
it and moved in. Used to be there quite a lot when Tom 
Barrows had it, he and his wife. They didn’t get along 
any too well, I remember. . . . Haven’t been in it since 
they busted up. Haven’t been within sight of it that I 
can remember. Don’t know why, I’m sure. I've got no 
quarrel with that woman down there, even if she has 
taken the bit in her mouth. . . . Damme! I rather admire 
her. No reason why I shouldn’t have gone there be¬ 
fore. 

“Well, I went there to-night. She came to the door 
herself. Blessed if I didn’t feel kind of ashamed—never 
taking any notice of her before. I hadn’t thought about 
it before. But the roan mare was sick. ... I got tired 
of Hayley’s philandering. That man Chamberlayne knows 
about horses. I happened to be driving past. I thought 
of it. I stopped and went in. She received me like a 
queen! 

“I said: ‘I’ve got a mare that’s sick. Hayley, my 
groom, doesn’t know what’s the matter. I don’t want to 
send for the veterinarian if it isn’t necessary. Damned 
nuisance those fellows are; dose your horse and like as 
not put him out of business for a month. I thought per¬ 
haps Chamberlayne ’d be good enough to run over and 

42 


MANY WATERS 

take a look at her; give his opinion whether to have in the 
vet or not.’ 

“She looked at me with that high, imperious look of 
hers—high and mighty like—you know what I mean; and 
said: ‘Certainly. I’m quite sure he’d be very glad to help 
you if he can. I’ll speak to him about it.’ 

“I said: ‘Thanks. He isn’t about now ?’ 

“ ‘No,’ she said, ‘he’s not in now and won’t be till late. 
I’ll mention it to him at breakfast though,’ and she looked 
me straight in the eye and smiled. Not funny, you know, 
just superiorlike. Damme! she knows what people think 
and what they say; and damme! she doesn’t care a damn! 
By Gad, I admire the woman!” 

“You would!” Clara Callender’s tone was faintly con¬ 
temptuous. 

“So I said to her,” the Colonel continued, “I said to her: 
‘Thanks again. I’d be obliged if you would’; and then she 
ushered me to the door like any queen. The woman’s got 
breeding, hanged if she hasn’t! And at the door I 
wanted to say something, so I said: ‘I see your little girl 
has taken up riding,’ I said. ‘Good little horsewoman she 
is,’ I said, ‘I’d be glad if you’d let her ride sometimes with 
my boy.’ 

“She only smiled and I got a little flustered and I said: 
‘We’ve had him taught at home y’know—our own grooms 
and all that—so he don’t need lessons; but if you’d let 
her ride with him occasionally, I’ve no doubt he’d pick up 
a lot. He might sit better, you know.’ There’s nothing 
the matter with Don’s seat, of course, and she knows it; 
but I had to make some excuse—sounded so kind of pat¬ 
ronising and awkward without it—asking her to ride with 
him.” 

Clara Callender frowned. “I see no reason why excuses 
should be necessary for asking permission for Colonel 

43 


MANY WATERS 


Callender’s son to ride with a child of that sort,” she re¬ 
marked icily. But the Colonel only laughed. 

“You’ve never met the lady. You’d understand if 
you had.” 

“Indeed!” Mrs. Callender affected to be amused. 
“You think I might be awed by her?” 

“No, I don’t think that,” and Peter Callender laughed 
aloud. Clara did not like his laugh. 

“No,” he gave his verdict judicially, a moment later. 
“No, I don’t think you’d be awed by her, and I don’t think 
she’d be afraid of you.” He laughed again as if at some 
amusing speculation. “It wouldn’t be much of a meeting 
when you two got together, perhaps; yet, damme! I’d 
like to be there to see it!” 

He went away chuckling. 

3 

So Marian rode her pony beside Donald Callender’s 
Prince and Mark Wetherell’s Jacko up and down the 
countryside. And Clara Callender watched with ever 
increasing uneasiness the progress of their friendship. 
Her course was plain before her. 

When Peter Callender left his wife on the occasion of 
their last repeated conversation, he fancied that in that 
matter of the horseback riding he had once for all settled 
that perplexed question—should the little girl from the 
cottage be allowed to associate with the heir of the Cal¬ 
lenders. There was no affectation about the Colonel. He 
had insisted because he knew himself to be in the right. 
He went away and left Clara, carrying with him the firm 
conviction that he had conquered. It is a mistake which 
many men of masterful manner make. 

There was no actual revolt. Once, indeed, Clara took 
occasion to drop a slight hint. 

44 


MANY WATERS 


“Apart from other considerations, do you think this 
intimacy is wise?” 

“Wise? Why not?” The Colonel was mystified. 

“Well, there’s always the question of an attachment. 
Young people think they want to marry.” 

Peter stared at her aghast. 

“Good God! You’re not marrying the boy off at his 
age!” 

“One must think of such things,” said Clara primly. 

The Colonel began to bluster. “Nonsense ! It’s pre¬ 
posterous! I’ll have no such nonsense talked about!” 
Angered he left the room and nothing further was said. 
Clara was a dutiful wife and outwardly she obeyed his 
instructions. But the incident only confirmed her in a 
resolve she had previously made that Donald should go 
away to boarding school somewhat earlier than they had 
planned. They know how to manage these things at the 
good schools. They keep undesirable boys out and those 
who have undesirable sisters. Yes, it would be better if 
Donald went this year instead of next. 

She had consultations with Mrs. Wetherell about Mark. 
It was a pity Mark couldn’t go this year, too; but in that 
matter Cynthia was obdurate. Mark was too young 
still, she protested. And she wanted him with her a 
little longer. 

Clara sighed and went back home; but did not give up 
her idea. It would have been nice for Donald to have 
Mark there with him just at first, to break whatever home¬ 
sickness there might be; and it might have been easier 
to bring Peter around to her point of view if he knew Mr. 
Wetherell’s boy was going at the same time. However, 
there would only be a year’s difference. Cynthia had said 
Mark could follow Donald the following fall. It was all 
on the cards that they should be together. 

45 


MANY WATERS 


Some weeks later Marian told her mother: “Donald 
can’t ride with me any more. He’s going away to school. 
But Mark will be here. He’ll ride with me.” 

There was no dissatisfaction in her tone. 

4 

“Gee whiz! That was a tight squeeze!” 

The boy from the rectory wriggled out between the two 
layers, shaped like an upper and nether millstone, of a 
narrow fissure cleft in the rock, then turned to watch his 
companion struggle through. He made no effort to help 
her; that would have been an affront. 

“I knew we could do it,” said the little girl, standing and 
beginning to straighten the hair which had fallen in 
straggled masses over her eyes. 

“I couldn’t if it had been one half inch smaller.” 

“There was one moment when I thought we were 
stuck!” 

They laughed delightedly, exultantly, now the difficulty 
was past; sitting down on the hard shelf of rock in the 
strong sunlight and rubbing the dust stains from shoulders, 
knees and elbows. The sea wind blew in cool and refresh¬ 
ing; an angle of the rocks cut off all but a narrow segment 
of open water beyond. 

“That was something to do, though, you can bet!” 
Mark threw a glance, half casual, half triumphant, over 
his shoulder at the black opening of the crevice through 
which they had crawled, somewhat to the detriment of 
their clothes, it must be admitted. 

“Well, I’m glad. I’ve always wanted to try it.” 

“So’ve I.” 

Silence for a time while they worked diligently at the 
dust stains. There was a hole in a little girl’s stocking 
at the knee; she considered it thoughtfully. 

46 


MANY WATERS 

‘Til bet Donald couldn’t have done that,” said the boy 
boastfully. 

“Why not?” 

“Oh, because! He’d be afraid of getting himself all 
dirty like this. Don’s getting to be an awful dandy. I 
saw him, you know, when my father and I went over to 
look at the school. He’s changed a lot.” 

“I don’t care,” replied the little girl. “I miss him like 
everything. Don’t you?” 

Mark nodded. His face grew suddenly intensely 
serious. “It’ll never be quite the same again. We did 
have good times together, didn’t we ?” 

“And you’ll be gone, too, next term.” The little girl’s 
voice was mournful, distressed. She looked at the boy 
and saw that his mood corresponded to her own. His 
face grew even more disconsolate. 

“No more rides, no more picnics, no more exploring! 
Oh, dear! And yet it will be fun going away to school. 
Marian,” he said suddenly, “let’s always remember to-day; 
let’s mark it in some way—so we won’t forget. Let’s— 
oh, I don’t know how to say it—but let’s swear eternal 
friendship—come what may we’ll stick together. We 
could do that, at least.” 

“Yes,” she said, “we can take an oath we’ll never for¬ 
get to-day—the day we shared danger in the enchanted 
cavern—nor—nor any of our good times together.” 

“Yes,” he agreed, “we’ll swear an oath always to be 
friends!” 

There was something solemn and momentous and mys¬ 
terious in putting it this way. They clasped hands in 
silence. They were intensely serious. The broad sun¬ 
light slanted down on the white rocks and on their eager, 
earnest faces. 


47 


MANY WATERS 


“Promise you’ll never forget to-day and that we’ll al¬ 
ways be friends.” 

“I promise,” said the little girl solemnly. 

“So do I.” Mark looked away at the shining blue strip 
of horizon. Great and noble thoughts filled his mind. 

“Let’s promise for Donald, too,” the little girl whis¬ 
pered. “We’ll all be friends always—the three of us— 
forever.” 

“All right. I’ll promise for Don.” 

“And we’ll save one another in danger!”—The little 
girl became eloquent—“and comfort one another in sor¬ 
row; and stand by one another through thick and thin 
and no one shall come between us!” 

“Oh, yes,” Mark agreed. They were getting a bit be¬ 
yond his depth now. 

The little girl rose and shook the last bits of crumbled 
rock from her skirts. “Oh, dear! it makes me feel sad to 
have Donald gone and you going, too, so soon.” 

He sat still, legs pushed out before him, watching her. 

“What’ll you do?” 

“I don’t know. I may go away to school, too. Mother’s 
talking about it. Only think, we may be as old as old 
can be when we meet again!” 

He laughed at that. This was too absurd. After all, 
he wasn’t going until next year. 

They climbed down the rocks and wandered in desultory 
fashion home towards the village. They parted at the 
rectory gate. The sound of music came through the open 
windows. Cynthia Wetherell was singing. Mark walked 
up the path and slipped unnoticed into the room. It was 
cool and dark inside. His mother was at the piano in the 
far corner, her profile shadowy against the dark wall 
behind. 

Mark curled himself up in his father’s big chair by 

48 


MANY WATERS 


the window and listened. She was singing low and softly, 
some old-world song of touching sweetness that seemed 
to speak of “old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long 
ago.” It made the tears come into Mark’s eyes, he could 
not tell why, and his heart swell with a new, vibrant emo¬ 
tion, age old in its humanity. The song and the re¬ 
membrance of Marian’s words concerning their friend¬ 
ship mingled together to give him a feeling of immense and 
romantic responsibility. He began to revolve in his mind 
pictures of himself and Marian and Donald under all sorts 
of circumstances; he saw himself rescuing the other two 
from the most unheard-of dangers—a very Bayard for 
courage. 

His pride in himself swelled, grew big; the whole setting 
of his daydream changed imperceptibly. Troubadours and 
Crusaders stalked through his imagination, infidels thun¬ 
dered at the gate. As he looked out of the window, the 
hedge by the picket fence became a close-set phalanx of 
foemen’s spears; King Arthur’s knights rode out in wav¬ 
ering shadows from behind the lilac bush in the corner of 
the yard; Marian became on the moment a princess, a lady 
of high degree, and Donald a noble knight, the greatest in 
the land, and to both was he devoted esquire and defender. 

Cynthia’s voice rose and fell in tender cadences, a tide 
of sweetness; sank; grew still. A door clashed as the Rev¬ 
erend Paul entered. Cynthia rose abruptly from the 
piano and her clear, crisp voice broke the spell. 

“Mark, you’d better go and wash your face and hands 
for supper now; there’s father.” 

The dream was over. 


CHAPTER IV 


i 

M ARIAN stepped out of the little lane back of the 
paddock onto the white road which led towards 
Thornton. It was a warm day and the cool 
patches of shade along the road were refreshing. She 
was in no hurry, and the prospect of fields bright with sun¬ 
light, softly rounded hills grey in the distance, and the 
tang of salt air fresh from the sea (for the wind, what 
there was of it, was from the east) filled her with a keen 
satisfaction that had in it all the delicate longing of youth. 

She walked easily with lithe, swinging steps; slender, 
graceful. Years had not changed her much. At sixteen 
she was taller, a little fuller of breast, more robust and 
straighter of carriage; but she still wore her fair hair 
hanging down her back, her resolute little chin tilted up¬ 
ward as of old, and there was about her something aloof 
and virginal and very young. 

Her skirts were shorter than those of most girls of 
her age. She was conscious of this at times, but her 
mother did not appear to notice it, and there seemed to be 
nothing to be done about it. Vague questions and doubts, 
other than those about the skirts, were beginning to trouble 
her somewhat of late. She was at the period when she 
should have been exactly like other girls of her own age, 
a mere replica in thought as well as outward appearance, 
and vaguely she perceived that this was not so. She felt 
just a little odd—out of it. She was somehow different. 

50 


MANY WATERS 


Instead of being pleased at this evidence of a distinct per¬ 
sonality, she was remotely distressed and anxious about 
it. As far as possible she did her best to ignore it, not to 
think of it—yet there certainly was a difference. 

There had, of course, been the difference at school— 
that school from which she had been sent home after 
a few weeks. The angry tears which used to come into 
her eyes at the mere remembrance had ceased long ago; 
but the hurt of it was still there. Only they had not 
guessed how it had hurt. 

The dreadful conference with Miss Day, the head 
mistress, which sought so difficultly to explain what was 
apparently inexplicable. It was no fault of her own, they 
said. The puzzled wonderment of those first few days; 
the hurried return journey and her mother’s tight-lipped 
reticence upon her arrival—they were all things of the 
past now. 

She knew now what it was all about, she hadn’t then; 
and why Miss Day had talked so confusedly about “the 
good of the other girls . . . the good of the school.” 
They had simply found out about Ted, that was all. Miss 
Day had said, “For, of course, if you had been living with 
your father—” Looking back at it in the light of her own 
present knowledge it was all so dreadful, so unnecessary 
and cruel. She had wondered and questioned and at last 
something her mother had said told her. It had come to 
her in a flash—like that; terrible for a little while but 
there appeared nothing to be done about it. 

Loyalty to her mother and Ted kept her silent after 
that one lightning flash of realisation. But it had been a 
horrible month, that first one after her return. Ted had 
gone about, gloomy and forlorn, dejected, avoiding her 
eyes, seemingly more clumsy and awkward than ever. 
Her mother had been silent or impatient by turns, chiefly 

5i 


MANY WATERS 


towards Ted. Marian she treated with an unusual kind¬ 
ness, a pathetic attempt towards sympathy—even lending 
the girl her own horse to ride. It was a sacrifice. Marian 
knew it and cherished the tenderness which prompted it, in 
spite of the awkwardness with which it was vouchsafed. 

Marian felt very old at this time; much older than her 
mother and Ted. They were rather like children caught in 
a naughty act. But she must be kind to them and not let 
them see that she was hurt. She had not really cared 
about the school. She told herself that a hundred times 
over. She was better pleased to go back to old Mr. Horner 
for a time, and then to the Thornton High School for 
her instruction. But the incident made her painfully self- 
conscious and wary of any unusual kindness, ashamed, in 
spite of herself. That was why, although she still saw 
Mark occasionally, she no longer went to see Mrs. Wether- 
ell at the rectory as she had been wont to do. 

To-day she put the remembrance of all these things 
firmly from her and walked on a little more rapidly along 
the Thornton road. She saw fields on either side of her, 
bright with devil’s-paintbrush and crimson fire weed, and 
the hot line of green trees, heavy with sunlight, that 
bounded the farthest meadow. 

She put out her hand to brush it lightly over a clump of 
Queen Anne’s lace, just out, which grew by the roadside. 
The soft spikiness of the lacy flowerets always gave her a 
peculiar thrill. It was just like lace—real lace. That was 
what grand ladies always had on their wedding dresses. 
Her own grandmother had had a veil all of lace like that. 
She had heard her mother describe it many times in the old 
days, the very old days, before they had come to Whitridge 
to live. 

A lace dress was the next best thing to a velvet one—a 
red velvet with long flowing sleeves edged with ermine— 

5 2 


MANY WATERS 


such as the little St. Elizabeth wore in the well-thumbed 
story book at home with pictures by Reginald Birch. That 
had been what she used to think. The old idea crossed 
her mind dreamily now, as childish memories will some¬ 
times come back to haunt us with our old forgotten dreams 
and aspirations, even when we are older and wiser than 
Marian. She, too, reminded herself that she was getting 
older. 

A sudden turn in the road gave her a new vista, close¬ 
growing trees with a tiny stretch of woods running back 
from the road, and, unusual sight in the middle of a hot 
afternoon, a rider on horseback approaching at a walk. 
A small white terrier trotted nimbly ahead of him, darting 
from side to side of the road with sprightly animation. 

She knew him instantly—Donald Callender, home on 
vacation—although she had heard no mention in the vil¬ 
lage that he was even expected. He had been making a 
round of visits to various schoolfellows most of the 
summer, she knew. The Callender house up on the hill 
had been closed for some time past; the family had been 
abroad or in the city and Donald in college a great part of 
the time. But the Colonel and Mrs. Callender had re¬ 
turned to Whitridge recently, and, of course, it was to be 
expected that Donald would reach home some time before 
college began again in the fall. 

She walked more slowly in order to delay their meet¬ 
ing. They were still quite a distance apart and she was 
sure he had not yet observed her. Self-consciousness was 
just beginning to assert its hold upon her manner. And 
yet she was really anxious to see him, to talk with him 
again. 

And yet was she? A kind of absurd terror made her . 
want to turn around while there was yet time, and run back 
before he could follow her. Or she might step aside into 

53 


MANY WATERS 


the woods here at her right hand. Then she could watch 
him go by without the danger of being observed herself. 
Another time she could talk with him. She hesitated, and 
in that moment’s hesitation her common sense reasserted 
itself. No, that was ridiculous! Why should she be 
afraid to meet him? They had been children together. 

He looked terribly grown up though. He must be very 
tall when he was off the horse. She had not seen him for 
almost three years, for he had not come home between 
school and college; and he seemed to have changed a great 
deal. He came on more slowly. She thought he had 
already seen her standing there in the road, although as 
yet she did not think he had recognised her. Suddenly she 
realised that they had both grown up. 

“I must go forward with dignity,” she thought, “and 
as if I didn’t very much care about meeting him; and I 
must pretend to be not at all surprised, and as if it were 
the most natural thing in the world. And I mustn’t get red 
and stammer, I—” 

There might have been time to compose herself quite 
completely, and to address herself to him with the dignity 
which she planned; but Fate anticipated her. There was 
a different meeting in store for her. 

As she stepped out from the shadow of the wood, about 
to greet him, a shrill whistle sounded from the field on 
her right. There was a short, sharp bark, and of a sudden, 
with a yelp of delight, Pompey, the big white bulldog, 
bounded over the hedge and was leaping and jumping 
about her. 

“Down, Pompey, down!” she called. “Down, I say. 
Go back!” She caught a glimpse through the hedge of 
Ted crossing the field behind Pompey. She took a step 
forward. 

Then, in a flash, before the rider and horse could reach 

54 


MANY WATERS 


them, Pompey turned in the midst of a spring and his eye 
caught sight of the white terrier so confidently ap¬ 
proaching. 

Perhaps Pompey knew the horse Donald was riding to 
be a strange one—not one of the cottage string—and re¬ 
sented the fact with loyal jealousy; or it is possible that he 
merely sensed an infringement upon his own rights in the 
presence of the white terrier so close to the paddock. Cer¬ 
tain it is that for a moment he stood rooted to his place; 

then, abruptly, his indignation concentrated, focusing itself 
on the unoffending terrier. He gave a snort, half of rage 
and half of derision, and bounded, teeth bared, towards 
the unfortunate interloper. 

The terrier stood his ground bravely, at bay, for the 
space of half a second, then turned and fled precipitately 
under the horse’s heels. 

But Pompey was too quick for him. Like lightning he 
pounced; he snarled; he tore. Shrill cries rent the air. 
Pandemonium reigned; there was chaos—“confusion 
worse confounded!”—as Pompey and the terrier rolled in 
a jumbled mass of hind legs, forelegs, snapping mouths 
and blood-curdling screams in the dust of the road. 

With a cry Marian ran forward. At the first onslaught 
the frightened horse careened wildly, but Donald held him 
well in hand, and, standing up in his stirrups, lashed at 
both dogs with his riding whip. Ted came crashing 
through the hedge onto the road. 

“Hi, stop, Pompey! Hi! Stop! I say! What the 
devil!” “Here, take your damned brute away. Pull him 
off, can’t you? Why don’t you do something?” “Oh, Ted, 
please, please hurry!” A confused medley of cries to add 
to the dogs’ uproar. 

Marian was in the thick of it, calling, beating, implor¬ 
ing; the dogs seemed to be all about her. By a miracle 

55 


MANY WATERS 


she was not bitten. Ted saw her and called to her sav¬ 
agely : “Here, come out of there! Let them go. You 
can’t stop them now! It’ll be over in a minute.” 

“Yes, over for my dog!” cried Donald angrily; and 
springing out of his saddle, he, too, joined the fray. 

It was Ted, however, who, in spite of his expressed cau¬ 
tion, did the most valiant service in separating them. He 
caught Pompey’s collar at last, and, by dint of much 
tugging, adjuration, and by the force of his years of iron 
training (he was always master of his dogs), persuaded 
him loose. The terrier took one final terrified snap at his 
rescuer’s hand, then scurried away into the bushes whither 
Donald followed and retrieved him. 

Ted, holding Pompey in leash with one hand, was negli¬ 
gently wiping the blood from the back of the other on his 
breeches as Donald reappeared, the terrier in his arms. 
Pompey’s tongue lolled out and he lunged, straining at his 
leash, as his eyes again encountered his enemy, but Ted’s 
grip was strong. 

Young Callender was hot with indignation. “I say 
you,” he demanded fiercely of Ted, “what do you mean 
by letting a great ugly brute like that loose on the roads ? 
You ought to keep him chained up! It’s a disgrace letting 
him go unleashed like that. He’d have killed my dog if 
I hadn’t stopped him. He’s a damned nuisance; and you’re 
to blame letting him go about loose like that!” 

Ted looked at his torn hand a moment before replying. 
He put the hand to his lips and spat out the blood de¬ 
fiantly. It made a dark red spot in the dusty road. For 
the first time Marian realised, with a flash of shame, that 
he looked like a groom. 

He looked at Donald. “You shut your young trap,” he 
said deliberately. “Another word from you and I’ll let 
him loose again to finish up that cowardly little rat catcher 

56 


MANY WATERS 


of yours. If it hadn’t been for me he’d have done it be¬ 
fore ; and a good job, too. I’m sorry I stopped him. Your 
dog’s a cur,” added Ted contemptuously. 

Donald was obviously annoyed. He was not accustomed 
to being addressed thus, and it was true that his dog had 
cringed. He was very young and Ted’s words seemed to 
him to be a reflection on himself. 

“My dog’s a blooded dog,” he muttered. 

“Bah!” Ted spat again. “Steady there, Pompey!” 
He looked again at Donald. “Why didn’t you let ’em 
fight it out, then? That would show your beast’s breed¬ 
ing. It always brings it out.” 

Donald flushed and hesitated. “My dog didn’t begin 
it. He doesn’t attack. He was taken by surprise. If you 
want to make it a personal matter—” 

Ted’s eyes lighted ominously. “Put your dog down, 
then, and we’ll have another go. You back your dog and 
I’ll back mine.” 

But Marian sprang forward. 

“For shame, Ted! How dare you! It was all Pompey’s 
fault, you know it was.” Her eyes, ordinarily so grey 
and calm, flashed blue with anger. “For shame! how can 
you suggest such a thing?” 

Ted did not look at her. He stood stubbornly watching 
the white terrier which still cowered in its master’s arms. 
Pompey, straining at his leash, growled viciously. Ted’s 
hand on the collar twitched, and a grim smile crept upon 
his lips. It was then that Marian proved herself mistress 
of the situation. She walked rapidly over to Donald and 
held out her arms for the terrier. 

“Give him to me.” 

Donald looked at her, at the slim white arms out¬ 
stretched to him, at her tall, sturdy figure and the resolute 
line of her mouth. In silence he gave the terrier, clutch- 

57 


MANY WATERS 

ing and trembling, into her arms. She turned to 
the other. 

“Now, Ted, take Pompey home—at once.” Her voice 
had a ring of command tinged with reproof. Ted stared 
at her for a moment—surprised, displeased; then, whis¬ 
tling a tune under his breath, he stooped, took a firmer hold 
on Pompey’s collar and without another word led him, 
protesting, away. 

Down the road they went, Ted with his eyes steadfastly 
before him, Pompey to the last looking back at Marian 
with bloodshot, reproachful eyes. 

The others watched them out of sight. When they were 
gone, Marian stooped, and, with a little pat, set the terrier 
on the ground. She looked up and met Donald’s eyes for 
a moment. His own were smiling. All trace of his recent 
irritation had vanished. 

“I say, though, you’re rather brave. The way you 
plunged into the midst of that affair. Weren’t you scared ? 
Not many girls could have done that. Most that I know 
would have screamed or fainted or something.” 

“Oh, Pm used to dogs,” she replied carelessly. “We’ve 
always had a lot of them about, you know.” 

“I didn’t. I thought it was horses.” 

“Oh, dogs and horses both.” 

There was a pause. Marian looked down and brushed 
some of the dust from her blouse where the terrier had 
rested. Donald went over to his horse which was quietly 
munching the grass by the roadside, and slipping the reins 
over his arm, led him back to where Marian was 
standing. 

“I say,” (funny the way he still used his old expression 
so constantly) “I say, before the dogs introduced us so 
precipitately, I thought you looked as though you were 
going to go by without speaking.” 

58 


MANY WATERS 


She threw him a hasty glance and flushed crimson. She 
saw now how absurd her conduct must have seemed. 

She reached up and patted the horse’s nose, but without 
again raising her eyes to its master. 

“I say, you weren’t going to cut me ?” he persisted. 

She looked up then, a quick, rather frightened look, and 
saw that he was smiling down at her with an odd, attrac¬ 
tive smile. She stood there patting the horse’s nose and 
hoping he would not pause there but go on talking, for she 
was quite at a loss to find anything to say herself. 

After a moment she was relieved to perceive that Donald 
did not labour under the same difficulty. He appeared 
somewhat amused at her sudden shyness, but he did not 
again press her for an answer to his question. Instead he 
slipped easily into an unembarrassed conversation on gen¬ 
eral topics, talking genially and gracefully of the life he 
had been leading since she last saw him. 

“You were going this way; I’ll walk along with you a 
bit.” He slipped the reins from his arm as he spoke, 
and stepped to her side. Marian glanced back at the 
horse. 

“Will he follow?” 

“Oh, yes, he always does.” Donald spoke negligently, 
although this devotion of the big black, this trick of the 
horse Nero was secretly his proudest boast. “Oh, yes, 
he’ll follow. Just go on and pay no attention to him. 
You’ll see.” 

They strolled on and, as he had said, the horse followed 
docilely at their heels, just as a dog might follow. As 
they walked Marian said very little. It was Donald who 
talked. Gaily and animatedly he sketched incidents in his 
life at college, told her of the visits he had recently been 
making at the houses *of school friends and of the sports 
they had enjoyed there. 


59 


MANY WATERS 


“There’s nothing like riding though, is there?” he 
finished, “and, strange to say, none of my friends, or very 
few, at least, seem to care about it. I’ve one friend 
though, a girl—in a way a sort of cousin of mine—who’s 
crazy about it. And, by the way, she’ll be down here soon. 
Coming to visit us at the Hall, you know. But there are 
a lot of other people coming, too. I don’t know whether 
they’ll let us ride much. When all my friends come I’ll 
try to get the whole crowd out sometimes. There’ll be a 
bunch of us. We may not have quite enough nags to go 
round—I’m hanged if I’ll let any one else ride Nero— 
But I dare say your mother could help us out if we need 
more. You still have all those horses down at your place, 
I suppose,’’ he added carelessly. 

“Oh, yes,” she agreed eagerly. “And I’m sure mother 
would let you have all you want. And then there’s mine 
you might have.” 

He smiled again, loftily, at her earnestness. She seemed 
to him so pathetically anxious to please. 

“Oh, you ride still, then?” His tone was splendidly 
patronising. “But of course I might know you do. Your 
mother still here and everything? I’ve not been home 
long enough to make many enquiries.” 

She nodded. 

“Oh, yes, just the same. But I ride Nance now. She’s 
our big mare. You remember? The one with the white 
star in the centre of her forehead.” 

“Can’t say that I do exactly.” He was tapping his 
shining black riding boot with his crop. “I’ve seen such 
a lot of horses since, you know. You’ll have to show her 
to me again. You’ll ride with me, won’t you—until my 
friends come, I mean—or—er—rather before they come? 
I’ve been looking forward to quite a bit of it while I’m 
here. There isn’t much else to do, is there? If you 

60 


MANY WATERS 


haven’t a houseful all the time it’s beastly dull. I won’t 
be here for very long, though, that’s fortunate.” 

“I—I ride ’most every day,” Marian announced diffi¬ 
dently. 

“Then you can ride with me. That’ll be great! It’s 
stupid riding alone. You used to go out with Mark Weth- 
erell and me, didn’t you, years ago ? I thought we used to 
ride together. Or were we only always going to do it—I 
forget. Anyway, what about to-morrow? Could you 
come to-morrow?” 

She nodded eagerly. “I’d love it! I—I usually ride 
alone. And as you say it is stupid sometimes, although I 
do love it.” 

What fun it would be, she thought, to have some one 
with her. She and Nance had explored most of the roads 
round about, and many that were not roads, and she liked 
and was used to riding alone. Nevertheless, there was an 
excitement in having a companion, some one other than 
Ted Chamberlayne with whom she rode occasionally—it 
was thrilling. Aloud she said: 

“What time? And—and where shall I meet you?” 

“Oh, three o’clock, say.” He hesitated. “Shall I stop 
down at your place for you, or—er—will you meet me 
somewhere ?” 

Something told her that she didn’t want him to come 
down to the cottage, or perhaps that he wouldn’t want to 
come. She was angry at herself for feeling so—anything 
that seemed like disloyalty to her mother and Ted made 
her ashamed. Nevertheless, she said quickly: “Oh, I’ll 
meet you somewhere.” 

“Where?” 

“Wherever you say.” 

He smiled again and looked about him. 

“Well, what about right here? It’s not far from your 
61 


MANY WATERS 


place, is it? And it’s out of the way. You won’t be both¬ 
ered by people passing or wondering what you’re doing.” 

There was, where they stood, the start of a small lane 
leading off from the road, a leafy enclosure. 

‘Til wait right there,” she said pointing to it. 

“Right-o. Well, I guess I’d better be going now. Here, 
Nero!” He gathered up the reins, lying loosely on the 
horse’s neck, and swung himself into the saddle. “So long, 
then. See you to-morrow. Don’t you forget!” 

“No,” she shook her head gravely, “I won’t forget.” 
She was patting Nero’s nose. “Do you know I haven’t 
ridden with anybody—except of course Ted—since Mark 
Wetherell went away. That was a year after you went. 
He didn’t go to the same school as you, after all, did 
he?” 

“Mark Wetherell? Oh, of course.” He was stooping 
over the horse’s neck rearranging the reins. “Good old 
Mark! I haven’t seen him in years. What kind of a chap 
has he turned into ?” There was just a shade of patronage 
in his tone. 

Marian met his eyes calmly. “Don’t you know?” she 
asked gravely. 

For a moment Donald failed to meet her eye. Then he 
laughed frankly. 

“Of course I do. The best in the world! And I’ve 
seen him since you have, I dare say. Don’t know what I 
wanted to be such an idiot for. Hope we’ll all three get 
together again some day. Well, good-by. Mind you’re 
on time to-morrow.” 

She watched him ride away between the arching trees 
down the shadow-patterned road, until a turn shut him 
off from her view. Then, plucking a wisp of grass from 
the roadside and drawing it thoughtfully between her lips, 
she walked on towards Thornton. 

62 


MANY WATERS 


2 

He met her on the morrow halfway down the Thornton 
road as he had promised. He was rather late in coming. 
Sir * had expected she would have to wait—somehow they 
had both seemed to take that as a matter of course in 
planning their rendezvous—but scarcely so long as this. 

The wind blew from the sea and Nance, the mare, 
fidgeted a good deal, lifting her head and scenting the 
keen salt air with widespread nostrils. She disliked stand¬ 
ing still, yet as a rule it took only a touch of Marian’s 
firm little hand to soothe her; but to-day her impatience 
was proof against all the girl’s exhortations. Perhaps 
Marian’s own excitement communicated itself in some 
occult way to the mare and contributed to her uneasiness. 
She pirouetted, arching her neck and tossing her head; 
jangling the bit in her mouth in spite of Marian’s efforts 
to calm her. 

But just before Donald appeared, riding nonchalantly, 
one foot swinging out of his stirrup, she quieted; so that 
he found Marian sitting motionless, straight and still in her 
arbour of trees, roofed over like a penthouse—as still and 
straight as some marble statue in its niche, or like one of 
the horseguards in front of the Parade in London which 
he had seen in his travels last summer. He meant to tell 
her of that later. 

At the first signal of command Nance stepped delicately 
forward, a certain strained nervousness apparent in her 
demeanour. She walked beside Donald’s big black, her eyes 
rolling, feet lifted high, eyeing her companion askance. 
She appeared a little timid and distrustful of this 
new acquaintance. She knew he was not from the home 
stables. 

Marian, too, was very shy. She answered Donald’s 

63 


MANY WATERS 


commonplace remarks in monosyllables, her eyes fixed on 
the road ahead of them, tapping her foot restlessly with 
her riding crop. She didn’t usually carry one, she would 
have scorned the idea of needing one. She had brought 
it to-day out of deference to Donald; and she was glad 
to have it now, since it supplied her with something to 
do with her hands. So she went on tapping and staring 
straight before her, and Donald looked at her from time 
to time, wondering how they were to get along if he 
couldn’t make her say anything. 

He did his best to put her at her ease. He was not 
actually aware that he was endeavouring to do so—he 
was rather young for such a display of tact—but he felt 
an immense superiority, and that made him gracious. 
Himself just past nineteen, he found his companion very 
immature. She was an amusing little thing with her 
fair hair hanging so straight down her back, and her big 
grey eyes which she lifted occasionally in swift glances to 
his face, and the old-fashioned habit. (She had put on 
her best and was rather proud of it than otherwise, but 
she did not tell him this.) He compared her mentally 
with the girl he had spoken of to her once before, Connie 
Leveredge, a connection by marriage of his mother’s, and 
was amused at the contrast. 

She sat her horse well, though, perhaps even better 
than Connie did, although Connie was an expert horse¬ 
woman. Riding had been one of the most strenuously 
advertised adjuncts to the curriculum of the very expensive 
school where Connie had so recently been “finished.” She 
was to “come out” in the fall. The memory of her deli¬ 
cate prettiness made him speak of her now. 

“I guess I told you the other day about some friends 
of mine who are coming down here to see me next week. 
One of them’s an awfully attractive girl. I call her my 

64 


MANY WATERS 


'cousin, Hie is, in a way, a sort of cousin. She’s awfully 
attractive; you’ll like her. She rides almost as well as 
you.” 

She gave lima quick look of eager thanks. They had 
taken the road that branched off from the Thornton road, 
an old, little-used wagon track, and were proceeding along 
it in the directicn of the sea. Already they could smell 
the pungent odour of the salt marshes, and see the gulls 
wheeling pensively overhead. 

“She’s a little older than you,” Donald continued. 
“About my age,” he added with a touch of condescension. 
“And she’s keen on society and all that. We’re to have 
a dance for her when she comes—rather a large dance. 
It’s fixed for Friday night of next week, I believe. I 
never pay much attention to that sort of thing; but there’s 
no end of fuss about it going on at the house.” 

He looked at her, expecting some comment, but she said 
nothing. Perhaps she was too much impressed by his 
air of detachment from the social side of life. It was a 
pose which he was only just developing. Had she been 
better acquainted with human nature she would have pro¬ 
tested against this neglect, this scorn of convention on his 
part. As it was she said nothing and he, too, lapsed into 
silence. The only sounds were the occasional jingling of 
the bridles and the shuffling pad-pad of the horses’ hoofs 
in the soft sand of the shore road, as they walked slowly 
towards the beach. Donald was turning something over 
in his mind. The extreme magnanimity of inviting her 
to the dance appealed to him irresistibly. 

“I say, you’ll come to our dance—my dance—won’t 
you?” 

Marian blushed fiery red and turned her face away 
towards the sea. “I—I’d like to, but—but I’m not in¬ 
vited,” she stammered. 


65 


MANY WATERS 

Donald laughed. “But you are. I’m inviting y6U 
now.” 

She hesitated. It was difficult to explain. 

“Your mother-—” she ventured, and stopped. 

But Donald was not offended. 

“Oh, well, if you’re so formal, I’ll hare mother send 
you an invitation to-morrow. That’s easy enough to get 
over. The party’s for me—for me and my guests, that 
is. I have whoever I want. You don’t suppose I 
have to ask permission, do you?” He tossed aside any 
impediment. It was agreeable to give the impression to 
one so obviously impressed, that one could order what one 
wished, even from one’s parents—that one had only to 
ask for things. 

And Marian was impressed, even while she tried to 
formulate the proper course for herself. After all, she 
had never been to a party—not a real party such as this 
would be. 

“You’ll come then?” He tried to see her face but 
she kept it resolutely turned away. “Eh? Give me an 
answer. You’ll come, won’t you?” 

“Yes, if you want me; and—and if mother will let 

_ >> 
me. 

Donald smiled. At nineteen it seemed absurd to him, 
the idea of asking permission for such a thing. But after 
all she was only a child. He felt a sort of compassionate 
pity for her youth and innocence. 

“I hope you can come,” he said, and let it go at that. 

They had taken the road which leads you straight down 
to Hodder’s Beach, the flat hard beach where you can 
canter without sinking in. Already Donald’s big black 
was stumbling among the loose stones, rolled down from 
the adjacent cliffs, that have to be traversed before the 
beach itself is reached. Nance never stumbled; she had 

66 


MANY WATERS 


been over these rocks too often. She picked her way 
delicately and deliberately with a sage discretion. 

They had reached the flat expanse of Hodder’s Beach 
now. The wind blew inland from the sea, strong and 
cool, with a hint of spray in their faces. The little waves 
broke well out and came tumbling in in serried rows of 
foam, not the thunderous rollers of further down the coast, 
where the tall cliffs stand defiant, but neat, flat little waves, 
like ripples blown up and grown suddenly big, that rushed 
with soft impetuousness up the beach and left a pinkish 
trail behind them as they ran back to join their fel¬ 
lows. 

Nance and the black picked their way solemnly along 
the hard sands that deadened their hoof beats, the mare 
pretending once or twice, as was her wont, to shy at a 
stray wreath of seaweed lying loosely above the water 
line. Their riders appeared content to go slowly; but 
Nance, with expectant ears, waited the signal to canter. 
She knew well what the beach was for. 

But Donald and Marian still dallied. Beyond them were 
the long, blue-grey billows, ahead of them the flat, hard 
sands stretching a .smooth roadbed for a mile or more 
before it was lost again in the sloping cliffs that rose at 
the farther end. Far up the beach they could see the 
sunlight flashing on the old pavillion, “Hodder’s Casino,” 
a dilapidated “pleasure palace” of other days, disused and 
boarded up now, but once the scene of much innocent 
gaiety. It stood outlined against the yellow sands and the 
deep blue sky, its garish white ugliness transformed at 
this distance to the sparkling turrets and minarets of some 
eastern mosque or Aladdin’s palace of marble. Marian’s 
eyes were fixed on the shining white splendour. “Let’s 
canter,” she suggested. 

“Right-o!” Donald lifted the reins on his horse’s neck. 

67 


MANY WATERS 


Nance needed no command. With a brave toss of her 
head she sprang forward. In an instant she was in the 
black’s stride and they were off! 

Away they dashed, a flash of black and brown that 
raced against the blue. The sand, hard as a roadbed, 
crunched underfoot; the salt wind bit at their lips and 
blew Marian’s hair back till it streamed behind her in a 
long golden wave. Faster and faster they galloped, the 
mare eager to prove her mettle against the black’s. Marian 
was in a seventh heaven of delight. This was life to her; 
this eager pulsing joy. The mad, glad wind sang in her 
ears, loosened a strand of the fair hair and sent it whip¬ 
ping across her cheeks. She tossed it away and looked 
back at Donald, laughing. 

Her hat slipped back. It bothered her and she had 
to hold it on with one hand. In a breathless moment be¬ 
tween the thudding of the hoofs Donald shouted to her: 
“Why don’t you take it off?” The wind rushing by tore 
the words from his lips, but she heard and did as he 
bade her, slipping the elastic over her arm and letting 
the hat dangle, but they neither of them paused in the 
mad race onward. 

Faster and faster, with thudding hoofs and tightened 
reins, side by side the horses sped along the sands, the 
black’s hoofs sending an occasional pebble scattering, the 
mare racing gallantly with outstretched neck and wide¬ 
spread nostrils and sidelong glances at her companion. 
Faster and faster, with the wind in their faces and the 
level sunlight on the waves flashing. 

Marian leaned well forward over the mare’s neck. Her 
pulses were pounding and the wind singing in her ears. 
A flock of killdeers rose suddenly at their approach and 
flew before them along the shore, crossing and recross¬ 
ing their path with the sun glinting on their wings as they 

68 


MANY WATERS 


turned, all together, in mid-flight; then out to sea again 
with their platoon formation never broken. 

Faster and faster, with the sunlight striking sparks of 
fire from the rushing foam of the breakers, and the red 
line of cliffs ahead; faster and faster till the whole world 
appeared to be in flight. And from over the water, the 
sanderlings turned and came back, and rose and followed 
after, and raced them along the thunderous beach, till the 
mare began to pant softly, and the big black’s hoof beats 
slowed and faltered. 

Marian drew Nance in quickly, and watched the swift 
unresting flight of the birds as they skimmed outward 
over the curling crests of the waves, and out, still out, be¬ 
yond, her eyes marking their track, her unnamed joyous 
thoughts flying with them. 

Donald pulled in his horse further on, wheeled, and 
came back to her side. 

“I say, you stopped rather suddenly then. What hap¬ 
pened?” 

“Nothing. I wanted to watch those sandpipers, that 
was all.” 

“Why?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. They looked so free, flying like that 
wherever they liked.” 

He shook his head. “You’re a funny kid! You’ve got 
the weirdest ideas. But as a matter of fact, you’re all 
wrong—about those birds, I mean. They’re not free at 
all. Didn’t you notice? Not one of them got out of po¬ 
sition. They do just as their leader tells them to. Fright¬ 
fully hidebound things they are really, when they fly in 
flocks like that.” 

“I don’t care.” She was still gazing wistfully out to 
sea whither the glittering birds had vanished. “I like 
them. I’d like to fly like that.” 

69 


MANY WATERS 


Regretfully she patted Nance’s neck as a signal to pro¬ 
ceed. Quietly now they walked the rest of the way along 
the sands until they reached the place where the sharp 
cliffs come down into the sea and end the beach. 

“We’ll have to turn here and canter back, shan’t we ?” 
he asked. 

“We could, but it’s rather far. There’s a path up here 
we can take over the cliffs and along the dunes. It’s a 
little rough, the going, at first, but it runs into a regular 
road at the top of the cliff. Shall we try it ?” He nodded 
assent. 

“All right. I’ll go ahead and show you the path.” 

She led the way up the steep, narrow incline. He 
watched the slender line of her back as she leaned well 
forward over Nance’s neck. The mare scrambled cleverly 
up; the big black followed more clumsily. At the top the 
path ran a little way along the edge of the cliff before 
it turned inland, skirting the soft outlines of the sand 
dunes, beyond which lay the salt marshes, to join the nar¬ 
row rutted road that led back towards Whitridge. 

They paused for a moment at the top of the cliff to 
watch the sea transfused to a soft green against the pink 
edge of the moist sand where the water had run back. 
Out beyond the white ruffles of the breakers it was a deep, 
mysterious, turquoise, deepening gradually to tender all- 
enveloping azure. Then they turned, trotted gaily past 
the long dunes lying lustreless in soft grey heaps, where 
the shadows were changing from brown to violet, and 
on, over the clattering wooden bridge and down the long 
road that wound, first in the direction of Tonomet, and 
then back towards home. 

They took this remaining portion of the ride almost in 
complete silence and rather slowly. There was one 
breathless canter along the level stretch back of the coast- 

70 


MANY WATERS 


guards’ cottages; but their conversation was desultory 
and a kind of lassitude, a reaction, perhaps, from the 
wild joy of that first canter down on Hodder’s Beach, took 
hold of their limbs and filled them with a pleasurable 
feeling of fatigue. 

Their way now, coming from this direction, led past 
the Pritchards’ front gate, and it was there she said good¬ 
bye to him, slipping down from her saddle and opening 
the driveway gate for herself before Donald had noticed 
that, for some reason, it happened to be closed. 

Funny kid! he thought to himself again, not to have 
waited for him to do it for her. Nevertheless, he leaned 
out of his saddle. 

“I say, you’ll ride to-morrow again? No, not to-mor¬ 
row, either, I can’t. I’ve got to go to Thornton with 
my mother. I’ve promised her. The day after then. 
Will that do?” 

“All right,” she said, “the day after.” 

She led Nance through the gate and closed it after 
her. Donald watched until she disappeared around the 
turn of the drive. Then he rode slowly back to the 
Hall. 

He thought of Marian in an odd, complex way mixed 
in with reminiscences of his early youth and the good 
times he and Mark and she had had together. He had 
forgotten all about her and pretty much about Mark 
while he was away. He had none of that sentimentality 
which frequently attacks young people in regard to the 
days of their youth, that half-melancholy recollection of 
bygone pleasures. He had early mastered the art of liv¬ 
ing solely in the present. He discounted, therefore, any 
sentimental attraction which Marian might have for him 
because of their association in the past. 

He had, moreover, no intention of thinking of her in- 
71 


MANY WATERS 


dividually as anything that mattered. He was at an age 
that scorns a girl of hers, and yet, in a way, she inter¬ 
ested him. She was a funny kid; so serious and so—he 
couldn’t quite put his finger on it or give it a name, this 
elusive quality in her which had impressed him—a sort 
of aloofness, like a mantle of virginal splendour wrap¬ 
ping her about; it had undoubtedly impressed him and, 
in spite of himself, somewhat awed him. He was sur¬ 
prised. Yes, she was a funny kid! He shook his head, 
rode up to the door of the Hall and promptly forgot all 
about her. 


3 

The rides in the following week were many. On the 
day before Donald’s friends were expected down for the 
house party, they rode in the afternoon as usual. 

It was hot, very hot. The road towards Tonomet 
stretched before them, a white ribbon of blazing light in 
which the horses’ hoofs appeared to sink fetlock deep 
in the dust. They rode along in silence for some dis¬ 
tance. 

“Shall we strike down to the shore road?” he asked. 

She shook her head. “It’s too hot to canter. Let’s go 
around by way of Lon6 Tree Hill and back by the Thorn¬ 
ton road.” 

He nodded. “Right-o! I dare say if there’s any 
breeze at all it will be up there.” 

They moved on, the cloud of dust raised by Nance’s 
and the black’s hoofs hanging motionless, a thick white 
barrier behind them. It settled on Donald’s shining boots 
and dulled the russet brown of Marian’s putties. Nance 
tossed her head frequently, a wary, distrustful movement, 
and now and then a little apprehensive shiver shook 
her. 


72 


MANY WATERS 

They wound up past the crest of the hill and down 
again. The breeze was nowhere to be found. Once or 
twice they trotted, but there was no cantering to-day. 
“Oh, it’s much too hot,” Marian had objected when, on 
the upward slope of the hill, Donald suggested it. 

The heat persisted. The sky, a pinkish blue, hung 
heavy above them with new, bellying masses of white 
cloud. 

“Look at those thunderheads,” Donald said musingly. 
“Did you ever see such white puffy ones? That one 
over there looks just like a mushroom.” 

Marian did not answer, but Nance glanced nervously 
about, and picked her way more delicately along the dusty 
road. 

“I hope it’s not going to rain,” Donald continued, “and 
spoil our ride. This is our last ride together. My friends 
come to-morrow, you know.” 

He spoke carelessly. There seemed to him nothing 
incongruous in thus announcing to her her prospective 
retirement. 

It was some time before Marian spoke, so long that 
Donald had forgotten the connection. 

“It’s been fun, though, hasn’t it?” 

“What has?” 

“Our riding together.” 

He agreed absently, watching the low bushes along 
the way, their heads heavy with the thick white dust, 
and the goldenrod in the fields beyond, full blossomed, 
fat and yellow, drooping under their golden weight. 

A pair of crows flapped cawing over their heads to 
a bit of woods beyond the fields. In a long patch of 
pasture land, cows nibbled negligently, a single one here 
and there, others crouched together in huddled groups 
under the shade trees. August, rich and luxuriant, sum- 

73 


MANY WATERS 


mer in her fullness, heavy with foliage, murmurous with 
insect life, fertile in harvest, replete, like a woman in the 
plenilune of love. 

The grass at the side of the road began to stir faintly, 
and commotion amongst the leaves of a nearby group of 
trees showed the wind rising; but no sound reached them 
as yet, although the towering white clouds were being 
followed in a swift race across the sky by blacker ones, 
heavy with portent. A roll of muttered thunder greeted 
their ears. 

Marian held out her hand. “Look,” she said, “it’s be¬ 
ginning to rain.” 

Donald pulled in his horse. “I say, it surely is!” 

He looked around him doubtfully at the swaying 
branches of the trees and the thickening heavens. 

“And it’s going to rain harder yet before it’s through! 
Shall we turn back ?” He looked over his shoulder down 
the long, dusty road. “Still, that’s about as far as to go 
ahead.” 

“We oughtn’t to have come so far,” remarked Marian 
calmly, without regret. Donald made no answer. 

“Let’s ride on,” he suggested. “We’re sure to find a 
barn, or farmhouse, or something along the road if it 
rains too hard.” 

They moved forward at a foot pace. The rain sprinkled 
gently, falling through the trees with a soft rustle. The 
road, a narrow one, afforded them sufficient protection 
for the moment; but after a while the drops began to 
penetrate their shelter, and an open space of road, which 
they covered at a quick trot, nevertheless showed them 
the inadvisability of continuing thus. Once more Donald 
drew rein and looked about him. 

“I say, we can’t stay out in this. It’s going to rain 
pitchforks in a moment. Look at those black clouds: I 

74 


MANY WATERS 


don’t think I ever saw worse ones. Let’s turn in here 
and see if we can’t find some shelter.” 

He wheeled his horse as he spoke, into a narrow lane, 
dusky and overgrown with arching boughs under which 
they had to stoop in order to pass. The sweet scent of 
newly fallen rain on leaves and moist earth came to them 
as the horses plunged into the enclosure. 

“It’s like the woods surrounding the Sleeping Beauty’s 
castle!” Marian declared delightedly. 

Even wet and dripping the place had a romantic charm; 
but Donald was too sophisticated for such fancies. 

“I say, I’m getting wetter and wetter. These damned 
trees leak like a sieve. Oh, Jimminy! there goes a drop 
right down my neck! I say, there must be something, 
some place to stop. Are you getting very wet? If we 
can't find a place you must take my coat.” 

The rain was coming down in deadly earnest now; it 
spat with a vicious fury. The scent of the wet woodland 
mingled with the odour given off from the steaming 
horses and the smell of wet leather. Donald rode ahead. 
The lane widened somewhat. 

“Ah, here we are at last!” 

They had come in sight of shelter. It was an old 
tumble-down shed or barn, unused, apparently, for the 
crumbled foundations of a house which had fallen in 
ruins showed near by, and all was overgrown with vines 
and bore the pathetic look of the deserted homestead. 

The barn itself, although rather dilapidated and open 
back and front, was clean and empty. They rode the 
horses inside and tethered them at the far side. They 
stood for a while watching the downpour from the cool 
shelter of the shed. 

“It looks like a solid sheet of silver and—and it sings, 
doesn’t it? As if it enjoyed coming down.” 

75 


MANY WATERS 


‘'You ought to see it rain in the tropics,” he told her. 
“There it comes down in bucketfuls, oh rather! You’ve 
no idea how it can rain. And the rivers get full all of a 
sudden, rivers where there isn’t any water half of the 
year.” 

They moved back a little to keep out of the wet, for 
the wind was shifting a bit. The musty inside of the 
shed smelled of hay and harness and the faint pervasive 
sweetness of stored apples. The rain slid along the outer 
edges of the barn and poured from the gables. An upper 
story, roofed over, muffled the beating of the storm above 
their heads; but it hissed softly in the open space before 
them. They moved farther and farther back, but the 
rain kept beating in. 

“I’m going to shut those doors,” Donald announced. 

“What’s the use?” she laughed. “The back’s all open, 
anyway.” 

“Yes, but the wind’s not from that direction.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t close them,” she said again. “It’s 
pretty watching the rain, and cooler. How much cooler 
it’s got, do you notice? It won’t hurt us to get a little 
damp.” 

Nevertheless, he pushed the sagging doors to. They 
would not quite shut, but left an opening perhaps a foot 
wide through which the storm sent an occasional spurt of 
rain. Donald found an old tumble-down bench tucked 
away in one corner. He dragged it out and dusted it 
off, and they sat on it, side by side, facing the opening 
and watching the heavy beat of drops on the floor of the 
shed and the intermittent flashes of lightning. Now 
and then a distant boom of thunder rumbled. In her 
corner of the barn Nance tossed her head and whinnied 
softly. 

“I say, you know, this is rather jolly.” He sat quite 

76 


MANY WATERS 


close to her on the narrow bench in the warm half-dark¬ 
ness of the barn’s interior. “I say, I don’t care if it 
doesn’t let up for another hour; should you?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t suppose so. Only I don’t want 
mother to worry.” 

“Oh, she won’t worry, will she?” he said lightly. “She 
knows you wouldn’t be such a fool as to sit out in all 
this.” He indicated the still pouring rain. 

“No, I suppose not.” 

“Besides, she knows you’re with me.” 

They were silent for quite a while after that. Out¬ 
side, the rain, past its first tumultuous anger, gradually 
lessened. They heard the muffled, ghostly tapping on the 
roof above them growing fainter and fainter. The silver 
shower in the doorway no longer flooded the floor. One 
narrow stream of water collected back of the opening 
and ran a little way tentatively towards them, stopped, 
and eddied around a stray bit of straw. 

He seemed acutely conscious of her beside him on 
the narrow bench. He put out a tentative arm behind 
her back. 

“I say, you know, we’re all alone here.” 

He looked at her searchingly, enquiringly. She turned 
to him, but all he could make out in the soft darkness 
was a slightly puzzled expression, as if she wanted to 
understand but didn’t. 

“There’s no one to see—don’t you think we might—” 
he paused. 

“What?” she asked simply. 

Donald hesitated. And again he was aware of that 
cloak of natural simplicity, of virginal splendour, that 
aloofness; and his courage failed him. 

“Oh, nothing,” he said huskily; and dropped his arm 
to the bench again. 


77 


MANY WATERS 


Marian continued to stare at him with wide-eyed ques¬ 
tioning; but as he made no further effort to elucidate his 
meaning, she turned from him at last. 

“Oh, look! A rainbow!” 

A glimpse of it could be had through the narrow open¬ 
ing. They hurried to the door and pushed it wide. The 
rain was still falling, a fine gentle drizzle, but the sun 
had already broken through the clouds; for up from 
the clump of trees that masked the entrance to the lane 
there stretched, in a wide shimmering arc, a perfect rain¬ 
bow in serried bands of colour. Tenuous and evanescent 
it hung there, quivering, sparkling in the rain-washed 
light, delicate as the ether from which it was born, mys¬ 
teriously beautiful. 

“Oh, how lovely!” Marian caught her breath as she 
stood by Donald’s side in the doorway. 

“Did you ever see a more perfect circle—only it isn’t 
a circle, is it? Or is it? It goes almost as far as we 
can see. Do you suppose it really does go right on 
around?” 

She laughed as she spoke; but Donald was gazing 
thoughtfully at the slender prism in the sky. 

“They say, you know, that there’s a pot of gold buried 
at the foot of the rainbow.” 

“Real gold?” 

“Perhaps. I suppose it depends on what you’re looking 
for. If you want gold it might be that, or it might, you 
see, mean happiness, or contentment or—or love, any 
of those things people are always searching for.” 

“Does every one search for something? Do you?” 

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t travel that far for it what¬ 
ever it was.” 

He turned back carelessly into the barn as he spoke; 
nevertheless, his words thrilled her. She stood still where 

78 


MANY WATERS 


he had left her staring at the slowly fading colours of 
the rainbow. His remarks about the old legend had been 
simple enough, there was nothing very remarkable either 
of poetry or romance in them, yet his words seemed to 
have opened up new worlds to her. She sensed suddenly 
the half painful, delicious savour of life, the sense of 
something wonderful to come, of the mystery and ad¬ 
venture wrapped up in the future. It was as if some one 
had opened the door of romance before her; and she 
knew that henceforth she would see life with different 
eyes. Pale, wistful, half-conscious dreams they were, 
such as come to all maidenhood, yet for Marian, to be 
forever indissolubly associated with that shimmering arc 
of colour in the milk-white sky. 

The rainbow had not even yet quite faded when they 
led the horses out from the deserted barn. To the mem¬ 
ory of its glory they mounted and rode slowly home. 

4 

It was almost dark when Marian reached home. Lights 
were beginning to twinkle in the Whitridge streets, and 
from far down the road she caught the gleam of a lamp 
in the cottage parlour. Ted Chamberlayne was out in the 
stable yard with a lantern waiting for her when she rode 
in. He helped her down from her horse, and loosened 
Nance’s saddle girths before leading her into the stable. 

Marian staggered a bit as her feet touched the ground. 
She was stiff from the long ride. 

“Your mother’s inside,” said Ted without looking at 
her. “She’s kept supper hot for you. You’re late. Bet¬ 
ter go in. I’ll bed down the mare.” 

Without replying, Marian turned and entered the house. 
The light in the sitting room made her blink after the 
thick darkness outside. She stood in the doorway and 

79 


MANY WATERS 


regarded her mother who turned startled eyes on her, 
disapproving eyes, vaguely inimical. 

“Where’ve you been?” Her voice, high-pitched as 
usual, held a note of irritation. 

“Riding with Donald Callender. We went down the 
road past Lone Tree Hill and we got caught in the rain 
and had to stop in a barn until it was over. I’m sorry 
to be late.” 

Her mother continued to look annoyed. There was 
a worried line betwen her high-arched eyebrows as if 
at some petty vexation. The role of preceptor was al¬ 
ways difficult for her. 

“All the same you’ve no business to be so late. You 
must have gone dreadfully far. And, anyway, I’m not 
sure that I like your riding around the country like this 
with young Callender. They say down in the village that 
he’s rather wild at college—not turning out any too well. 
I don’t know. I suppose it’s all right, but I don’t like 
it—you’re riding all over the country and coming in late 
like this.” 

“I won’t be doing it any more,” Marian answered 
wearily. “His friends are coming to-morrow.” 

Her mother did not respond to this; and Marian turned 
and went out into the kitchen. 

“You’ll find the vegetables in the oven and the cold 
meat’s on the table,” her mother called after her. 


CHAPTER V 


i 

I T was decided that she should go to the dance after 
all. After all, in spite of Ted’s objections. 

The invitation arrived in due form, a prettily 
worded formal note addressed to Miss Marian Pritchard: 

Mrs. Peter Callender 
requests the pleasure of Miss Pritchard's 
company on Friday evening, 

etc.—there seemed to be no fault to be found on the 
score of convention and yet Ted appeared dissatisfied. 

“I don’t see why you let her go,” he said surlily to 
Elaine. 

Elaine Pritchard sat frowning and biting her lips, with 
the letter held between her fingers. She was desperately 
undetermined about it. Marian had had no chance for 
any social life heretofore—of course, she was absurdly 
young for anything of the sort, but yet, when the chance 
did offer, was she, Elaine, justified in refusing her per¬ 
mission? Their circumstances were so peculiar— She 
looked up into Ted’s handsome, frowning face. 

“It’s a nicely enough worded note, Ted—and the child 
might enjoy the party.” 

“It isn’t the right sort of note, anyway, and you know 
it,” Ted rejoined. “Why didn’t she write to you and 
81 


MANY WATERS 


ask if Marian might come. That would be the decent 
way to do. She’s only a child, you know.” 

“Yes, I know. That’s the way I should have done it, 
of course. Still, there is a difference, I suppose. Any¬ 
way, it’s civil enough—the note.” She looked in a per¬ 
plexed way, and a trifle timidly at Ted’s scowling eyes and 
the grim lines of obstinacy about his mouth. “And I was 
only thinking of Marian. She’d enjoy it. She doesn’t 
have a great deal of fun, you know.” 

“Nevertheless, I’d keep her home.” Ted was firm in 
his opinion. “There’s time enough for that sort of thing 
later.” 

Marian who had kept silent during this discussion, 
now spoke: 

“But I’d like to go, Ted. And Donald asked me him¬ 
self a long time ago. Truly he did.” 

Ted stared at her in his blank way for a moment; then 
rose with a sort of grunt. 

“Oh, well, it’s your own affair. Suit yourself. I don’t 
suppose it matters much one way or the other.” 

He went out grumpily; he had not forgotten that lit¬ 
tle episode with Donald and the dogs on the Thornton 
Road. But as Elaine knew, he never interfered in her 
management of the child. She sat for some time after 
he had left the room, silent, with the note still in her 
hand and tapping her teeth with it pensively from time 
to time. In the end she decided that Marian should go. 

2 

Marian had been full of anticipation before the event. 
It was her first party, the only party she had ever yet 
been invited to. During the few days before it her heart 
was in a delicious flutter of excitement and eagerness. 
When the actual evening came, however, her spirits suf- 

82 


MANY WATERS 


fered a reaction. It seemed to her terrible that she 
should have to go alone. Also, she knew she would be 
younger than most of the guests, and youth is, at times, 
a great handicap. In spite of the excitement of prepara¬ 
tion she was distinctly nervous. 

Ted walked as far as the entrance to the Callender’s 
drive with her. As she fluttered along by his side she 
hoped he didn’t know the shrinking feeling she was ex¬ 
periencing. 

She held her head high and walked carefully, so as 
not to spoil her low-heeled black patent-leather pumps 
nor muss the white lawn dress (her best) which her 
mother had washed and ironed so carefully for this oc¬ 
casion. 

She looked very pretty—her mother had said that and 
Ted had agreed—in the simple white frock, with her 
fair hair looped up in a knot at the back of her head. 
It was the first time she had worn it that way and the 
strangeness of the coiffure added to her anxiety—as if 
she missed the friendly soft locks over her shoulders. 

Her dress had quite satisfied her when she put it on, 
and when she was standing in the little sitting room of 
the cottage being admired by Ted and her mother, but 
on the way to the Hall doubts began to assail her. Was 
it long enough? Was it short enough? Was it too high 
in the neck? Did it stand out properly? Was it, in¬ 
deed, altogether too simple? Most of the girls, she felt 
sure, would be in satin or silk. And oughtn’t her shoes 
to be white ? 

She walked along beside Ted, full of a seething dis¬ 
quietude. She was sure she was too early. That was 
a possible contretemps which had haunted her imagina¬ 
tion ever since the invitation had come and they had de¬ 
cided to let her go—the fear that she would arrive too 

83 


MANY WATERS 


early. Her mother had assured her when she left the 
cottage that she wouldn’t, that she would be j ust in time; 
but, after all, did her mother know about these things? 
She used to go to parties herself, it was true, but that 
was a long while back. Perhaps people didn’t go so 
early now. She was sure she had heard that somewhere 
—that people went to parties much later now. And no 
one had yet passed them going. How was one to tell? 

She glanced at Ted striding along so unconcernedly. 
It struck her as a little callous, this indifference of his 
to the gravity of the situation. He was whistling softly 
to himself under his breath, his lips pursed up. Her own 
mouth felt dry and hard and the palms of her hands 
were quite wet. 

Should she ask Ted about the time? Whether it 
wasn’t too early? No, he wouldn’t know about that. 
If necessary she could dawdle on the way up the drive 
after he had left her. 

After he had left her! After he had left her! Ter¬ 
rible words! She would have to walk all alone up the 
drive; and all alone through the big front door; and all 
alone into a big room! Oh, it was terrible, terrible! 
She wished now that they hadn’t let her come; wished 
desperately that they had kept her home. They had 
reached the entrance to the drive. . . . 

Ted left her with a nonchalance that seemed to her 
positively hateful. 

“Well, so long!” he said. “Have a good time. I’ll be 
here at the gate waiting for you at half-past eleven. You 
won’t mind coming that far—from the house here— 
alone?” 

“Oh, no.” 

“Well, good luck!” Ted turned to leave. 

“Oh, Ted!” 


84 


MANY WATERS 


He came back. 

“But, Ted, how am I to know the time?” 

The question was, in truth, only a desperate little 
strategy to keep him with her a moment longer. What 
remained of her courage was fast oozing away. 

But Ted didn’t understand. 

“Oh, there’s sure to be a clock somewhere about. Or 
if there isn’t, you can ask some one.” 

“Oh.” 

“Good-bye.” 

“Good-bye.” 

She stood between the pillars of the entrance staring 
after him. 

A little way off, Ted turned again and called back to 
her: 

“Don’t have such a good time that you forget to come 
home,” he said with an attempt at jocularity. His words 
were but a hollow mockery to the frightened child. 

She had dreaded the time when he would leave her 
to go the rest of the way alone. Now she realised that 
she had only half imagined the horror of it. She wanted 
most awfully to run after his retreating figure; to take 
his hand; to implore him to take her home again! She 
wanted most amazingly to do this, yet something de¬ 
terred her—a kind of stubborn pride. She had wanted 
to come—she had told them she wanted to come— 

A carriage turning in at the drive forced her to draw 
back suddenly, out of the way, and stopped her reverie. 
She saw three or four young men and girls in the back, 
evidently party bent. They all seemed very happy and 
gay, and looked at her a trifle curiously, she fancied, as 
if wondering what she was doing there. 

They were gone in a moment, bowling swiftly up the 
drive. It was no one she knew; they hadn’t looked at 

85 


MANY WATERS 


her particularly kindly, but their presence fortified her 
with the assurance that she wouldn’t be the first one 
there. She gave one last despairing glance after Ted’s 
rapidly disappearing figure. It seemed to her that he 
was indifferent. What he was really saying to himself 
was: “Poor little kid! In a blue funk and too game 
to say so! God knows how they’ll treat her up there!” 

Having watched Ted out of sight, Marian walked 
rapidly up the drive with her hands tight clenched. No 
need to dawdle, after all, since those others had gone 
in ahead of her. And now a second and a third carriage 
passed her. People seemed to look out of them at her 
curiously, too. Perhaps she ought not to be on foot at 
all. She hurried on, not wishing to be seen by any one 
else. It would appear that one ought to go to a party in 
bunches; no one else was alone like this. They stared 
at her, these others, and from one carriage a burst of 
laughter just after they had passed her floated back to her 
and brought the colour to her cheeks. It had, probably, 
nothing to do with her—they were a gay little party of 
close friends inside—but she imagined it did and suf¬ 
fered accordingly. But it also woke that resolute little 
determination in her. No turning back now! She set 
her chin firmly and proceeded. 

She tried to reassure herself. After all, she had been 
properly invited. It wasn’t as if she were pushing in 
where she wasn’t wanted. Donald had wanted her— 
he had said so. And she looked very nice. Her mother 
and Ted had both remarked upon that. She was evi¬ 
dently arriving at the proper time. 

And yet, as she came within sight of the big front 
door, a feeling almost of suffocation overcame her; fol¬ 
lowed by one of bleak desolation as the door was opened 
for her, and she realised that now, at any rate, it was 

86 



MANY WATERS 

too late to retreat. If she only had some one there to 
go in with her it might not be so dreadful. 

'‘Upstairs to your right, please.” 

In a sort of trance, through which she seemed acutely 
self-conscious, she crossed the hall, her low-heeled patent- 
leather pumps sounding in her ears like hobnailed boots 
on the polished floor. There were only a few persons in 
the hall but they all appeared to cease talking and look 
at her. She felt, uncomfortably, a dozen pairs of eyes 
upon her. 

Resolutely she mounted the stairs, and started blindly 
into a room on the left. 

“No, no, miss, in here, if you please!” 

She drew back, mortified, covered with a deep humilia¬ 
tion. She had tried to walk into the room set apart for 
the men to take off their hats and coats in. What a 
dreadful blunder! 

She had nothing to leave in the dressing room save 
a light scarf which she had worn about her shoulders, 
and which her mother had advised her to keep with her 
in the dance room in case she should get overheated with 
dancing, and cool too quickly. She remembered that 
now; but she had come upstairs and she felt that some¬ 
thing had to be left there in the dressing room. She 
unwound the scarf from her shoulders; and as the maid 
didn’t appear anxious to take it from her, laid it herself 
upon the bed. 

She didn’t know what to do next. There was a group 
of girls over by the dressing table completely monopoliz¬ 
ing the mirror. They showed no disposition to make 
room for her there, so she stood uncertainly where she 
was between the bed and the door. 

“Can I do anything for you, miss?” the maid asked. 

Marian shook her head and flushed. She was afraid 

87 


MANY WATERS 


to speak. And she saw the woman smile. It was only 
because she appeared so immature and frightened; but 
the girl did not understand. That covert smile was like 
a whiplash across her face. She turned abruptly and 
left the room without so much as a glance in the mirror. 

The maid followed her to the door, and she felt the 
woman’s eyes on her back all the way as she clumped down 
the stairs. 

To her right or the left now? Her heart was beating 
so hard she thought it must show from the outside. If 
only she could find Donald; but Donald was nowhere 
to be seen. 

Instead, in the room to the right which she presently 
entered, she saw a number of people, all very well dressed, 
and chatting amiably; but there were none whom she 
knew. One knot, composed of Donald’s mother and three 
or four remarkably attractive girls, appeared to be the 
centre of interest. 

Marian stood dumbly in the doorway. She knew that 
she must go up to them and speak to them, but she was 
waiting in a vain hope of acquiring a little more 
courage. 

At length, affecting a calm which she was very far 
from feeling, she took a step towards them. She had 
only just started when a group of men and girls brushed 
by her, one man pushing her aside with a careless, “Oh, 
pardon!” They pressed ahead of her up to the receiving 
line. Marian waited a second; then followed meekly in 
their wake. 

She managed to reach Mrs. Callender’s side, and put 
out a hesitating hand. Mrs. Callender raised a jewelled 
lorgnette enquiringly; Marian blushed furiously. 

“I’m Marian Pritchard,” she said bluntly. Her own 
voice sounded terribly coarse and brusque in her ears. 

88 


MANY WATERS 


Ought she to have waited—not announced herself like 
that? She was sure Mrs. Callender really knew her. 
That raising of the jewelled lorgnette was only manner; 
she should have waited. 

Mrs. Callender smiled ever so slightly, an irritating 
smile. 

“Oh, yes,” she said, “so good of you to come so 
early.” 

She was early then, after all! 

All her former fears returned tenfold. Perhaps all 
these people here were special friends asked particularly 
to come early to be there when the other guests arrived. 
And Donald was nowhere to be seen. He surely would 
have been there if she had not come before she was 
expected. Her last remaining pleasure in the party fled 
precipitately. She fell back from Mrs. Callender’s pres¬ 
ence, drooping miserably. 

The latter was already shaking hands with some new 
arrivals and introducing them down the line—she had 
made no attempt to do this favour for Marian. The 
child retired to a corner and studied the faces of these 
visiting girls whom she was not asked to meet. That 
one just next to Mrs. Callender, the one with the dark 
hair so beautifully curled, and the pretty red mouth, must 
be Connie Leveredge, the almost-cousin whom Donald 
had spoken of as coming. Marian recognised her in¬ 
stantly from Donald’s description. 

Slender and petite—she was not over five feet—Con¬ 
nie Leveredge displayed in her manner and appearance 
all the assurance and sophistication that Marian lacked. 
She was unusually pretty, not beautiful, but wonderfully 
well gotten up—and charming in a bright, vivacious way. 
She was clever in conversation as well as looks, alto¬ 
gether a rather unusual girl, a radiant, sparkling, spirit- 

89 


MANY WATERS 


uelle little beauty. Marian watched her chatting and 
laughing with an admiring wonder entirely untempered 
with envy. She was frankly awed. It must be won¬ 
derful to be like that! 

Connie had very small white teeth which she showed 
constantly as she parted her small red lips and gave her 
merry, brittle laugh, that was somehow contagious with¬ 
out being really mirthful. She greeted all Donald’s 
guests, especially the young men, as if they were old 
friends; she seemed to find some sort of joke or merry 
flippancy to exchange with each one of them as, one 
after another, they crowded around her begging her to 
promise them dances a little later. 

She was very beautifully dressed, Marian noticed; in 
white, too, but such different white from Marian’s; white 
that was all shiny and sparkling as she turned and twisted 
and laughed. The other girls who were evidently visit¬ 
ing in the house, too, appeared popular, as well, but Con¬ 
nie easily outshone them. They were like a bevy of 
bridesmaids about a bride; Connie was so easily the centre 
of any group which held her. 

There entered, presently, people from Thornton and 
a few who lived on its outskirts, practically in Whitridge, 
people whom Marian knew. One a group of several girls 
with whom Marian had been at school. She knew them 
quite well and spoke to them. They all gave her keen 
looks and nodded indifferently; and at once became ab¬ 
sorbed in one another. She had thought of joining them, 
but now she hesitated. The girls appeared oblivious of 
her intention and she was too proud and too sensitive to 
do more to claim their attention. 

They were not unkind, could she but have known 
it, but they were girls who had come by themselves, with¬ 
out an escort; and they knew that later, when the dancing 

90 


MANY WATERS 

began, they would have to look out for themselves. They 
couldn’t afford to attach to themselves, perhaps per¬ 
manently, a girl so obviously destined to “sit out” as 
that little Pritchard girl. ... So they turned their backs 
on her and talked animatedly to one another, meanwhile 
following the progress around the room of possible danc¬ 
ing prospects out of the tails of their eyes. They were 
suffering nervous apprehensions as well as Marian, only 
they hid it better—they were more accustomed to this 
variety of torture, could even find in it a sort of painful 
adventure. They watched the young men moving about 
the room, covertly, fearfully, and yet casually, hoping 
passionately that this one or that one wouldn’t stop by 
so and so, but come on to them, and breaking out into 
brittle chatter as soon as the destined prey approached 
within hail, seeking desperately, by earnest, devoted con¬ 
versation to prevent his leaving their sides again before 
the music began. So of course they could not see little 
Marian. She drifted desolately by them and took up her 
lonely stand in the far comer of the room. 

She was sure that Donald would come to her if he 
were aware of her plight, or even Colonel Callender who 
was in the farther room heatedly discussing politics with 
one of the older men and a few hangers-on, callow youths 
who hoped thus, by listening to and appearing to join 
in the conversation of the elders, to give an impression 
of years and sagacity. But Donald was nowhere to be 
seen and Colonel Callender never once looked in her 
direction. 

Yet she felt that others did. They looked at her curi¬ 
ously, amusedly, satirically—except those who pointedly 
ignored her. It was terrible! Her cheeks were burn¬ 
ing. She stood in her corner with her head held high, 
her little chin raised defiantly for all the pain within 

9i 


MANY WATERS 


her, clutching with desperate, hot hands the little nosegay 
which Ted had gathered for her after supper—so it would 
keep fresh. Already her frock felt crumpled, even her 
pleasure in the crisp white muslin was evaporating— 
there were so many handsomer dresses there; and she was 
certain now that she ought to have had white shoes— 
every one appeared to look at her shoes. 

More people entered whom she knew slightly, but they 
passed her by. She could not but admire the light as¬ 
surance with which they came into the room. One was 
a boy with whom she had ridden when her mother was 
teaching him—a stupid boy who fell off his horse end¬ 
lessly. He stared at her blankly but did not speak. 

She moved restlessly to the opposite side of the room. 
In her nervousness it seemed to her that, wherever she 
went, groups dispersed at her coming; she felt her lips 
trembling. She wanted desperately to go away some¬ 
where to cry, but there seemed no place to go. How 
terrible if she were to burst out crying here. What 
would they all think? She thought wildly of running 
upstairs again after her scarf and fleeing the house; but 
if she did that she must needs face the impudently en¬ 
quiring gaze of that horrid maid up above. She would 
be obliged to make explanations; what excuse could she 
give? No, it was not possible. She must just stick it 
out here. 

So she stood there in her solitary corner; and gradu¬ 
ally a new terror came to her. She saw the orchestra 
getting their instruments ready. The music would play 
presently and every one would dance. She glanced fear¬ 
fully around the room. Yes, they all seemed to have 
partners and every one to know every one else. Yes, 
there was no help for it. Presently the music would 
begin to play and every one would dance—every one 

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MANY WATERS 


but her! She would be left standing like this in the 
centre of the floor and no one would ask her to dance; 
no one would ask her all evening! She would just stand 
there and stand there and every one would dance by 
and look at her. Oh, it was terrible! Oh, why had she 
come? Why hadn’t she remained at home with her 
mother and Ted? Why had she ever fancied she would 
enjoy it! Ted had been right; they oughtn’t to have let 
her come! 

The orchestra was tuning up. They were going to 
begin now. It was coming—the time when every one 
would begin to dance and leave her like this—like a 
mariner marooned on a desert island. 

She glanced at Mrs. Callender. No help from her. 
Marian remained as remotely apart from her hostess’s 
notice as if the girl were in truth as invisible as she 
longed to be. 

There was a sudden flurry of trumpets, a signal to 
commence by the orchestra; and Donald came in sud¬ 
denly, laughing, half a dozen young men at his heels; 
they were all laughing. Still laughing he walked straight 
up to Connie and took her hand without any preliminary 
ceremony; led her out on the floor. The drums crashed; 
they were off. 

As her prescience had warned her Marian was left 
standing alone at one side of the room. With the first 
notes of the music she had sidled into a chair. One brief 
hope she had had died at its birth. The boy with whom 
she had occasionally ridden came to the doorway, looked 
in, turned and went out. 

Around and around the dancers whirled in never-end¬ 
ing eddies past her place of mute shame. She saw that 
Mrs. Callender and one or two older women, mothers 
or chaperones, had taken seats along the wall opposite 

93 


MANY WATERS 


her; but they appeared completely engrossed in their 
conversation and gave her no invitation to join them. 
A group of young men, dancing men all of them, who 
had been too negligent or too dilatory to secure for 
themselves the partners they desired, hung about in the 
doorway talking in whispers, discussing the relative merits 
of the guests, perhaps, and occasionally breaking out in 
a raucous laugh at some sally of one of their number. 
They appeared sublimely unconscious of Marian sitting, 
a pathetic little figure in her rapidly wilting white muslin, 
just beyond them. 

Around and around the dancers whirled in a seemingly 
never ending chain. She saw Donald and Connie pass 
her now and again. Connie’s head was thrown back; 
her cheeks were flushed and she looked amazingly pretty. 
Donald did not appear to see Marian at all. 

Through three dances of white hot shame she sat 
there. Mrs. Callender and the women with her had 
moved into the next room; but still Marian remained 
in her place, her chin held high, her lips pressed tightly 
together to hide their trembling, and the little bouquet 
of flowers wilting in her hands. Three dances had 
passed, three intolerable times the music had played and 
people had risen from beside her, joined their partners 
and left her alone. It was just after the third dance that 
rescue came to her. 

It came in no more romantic guise than Colonel Cal¬ 
lender himself who entered the room just as the music 
stopped playing and crossed at once to her side. 

She rose timidly to greet him, and in spite of herself 
the tears came into her eyes, so grateful was she for this 
attention. He talked to her in his bluff, hearty fashion, 
he enfolded her in the protecting aegis of his benevolence, 
he shed about her the feeling of security, of welcome; 
94 


MANY WATERS 


yet all the time she knew that the music would begin 
again and she ought to have a partner. It would be so 
dreadful for him to have to go on and on talking with 
her. 

Incredibly soon the music began again and Colonel 
Callender left her side for a moment. She saw him go 
up to one of the unattached men standing in the doorway 
and address him. “Tenniel,” she heard him say, and a 
whisper followed. She knew what it was; he was ask¬ 
ing the young man to dance with her! 

A hot blush of shame suffused her cheeks, and she 
thought obstinately of refusing the young man. She 
needn’t have troubled to make such a resolve; Tenniel 
refused for her. 

“Sorry, Colonel,” he said, needlessly loud, “but I’ve 
this dance engaged.” 

Colonel Callender turned and she saw him address an¬ 
other, and the boy addressed shake his head; the group 
rapidly dispersed. The Colonel approached another. 

Oh, if only he wouldn’t! If only there were some way 
to stop him! Such charity was worse than sitting alone. 
She must stop him! 

She started blindly across the room, almost colliding 
with a revolving couple; she drew back suddenly and 
stumbled over a chair, sending it spinning along the 
polished floor. She recovered herself to find Colonel 
Callender standing before her, his face rather red. He 
paused before her and bowed low, a formal, old-fashioned 
bow. 

“Will you be so good as to favour me with this dance? 
It’s a waltz, you see. Sorry I’m not up to these new¬ 
fangled dances; but I think I can waltz. I used to, 
years ago.” 

They swung out into the tide of dancers. The Colonel 

95 


MANY WATERS 


danced badly; hopping grotesquely, bumping into couples, 
colliding with the furniture and occasionally treading 
on her toes; yet in the protecting haven of his arms 
Marian experienced the first bit of pleasure she had had 
that evening, the first bit of comfort even. She would 
not have cared if he had trampled her to atoms; it was 
such a blessed respite from the bleak wretchedness of 
those first dances. 

The music stopped, and Colonel Callender stood still 
in the centre of the floor, puffing rather loudly and wip¬ 
ing his forehead furiously with a large white handker¬ 
chief. The beads of perspiration were standing out all 
over him. 

“Gad!” he gasped, “how that winds one! I’ll bet that’s 
the first time I’ve danced in twenty years. Never was 
much of a hand at it; or should I say foot, eh? Not 
bad that! And we didn’t make such a bad fist of it at 
that, did we? There’s a chance for another pun, but 
I’ll let you make it; it’s beyond me.” He appeared rather 
pleased with himself than otherwise. 

Marian laughed with him; but even so she was not 
quite at ease. There was another dance coming! At 
the first signs of its commencement, the Colonel looked 
about him hastily; then led his partner straight up to his 
guest, Miss Connie Leveredge, pushing his way through 
the flock of young men surrounding her, and pulling 
Marian after him. Connie had been an instant success 
—the most obtuse observer might have seen that. The 
Colonel had seen it, too. He pushed forward to her side. 

Connie smiled pleasantly up at her host as he led Marian 
forward. 

“Connie,” he said, “did you meet Miss Marian 
Pritchard?” 

Connie puckered her brows. “I—I don’t think I did,” 

96 


MANY WATERS 


she said mildly, smiling and putting out a slender white- 
gloved hand. “How do you do?” 

Marian shook the extended hand dumbly. She felt 
very heavy and coarse beside such delicate grace and 
distinction. Connie looked enquiringly up at the Colonel. 
He answered her interrogation briefly. 

“I want you to keep Miss Marian by you while I 
look up Don. Miss Marian doesn’t know many people 
here; you’ve met ’em all; you might introduce her to a 
few.” 

“Oh, yes, certainly.” Connie made a place for Marian 
beside her; but they had little opportunity to talk for 
the young men kept breaking in with inconsequent chat¬ 
ter, and appeals to Miss Leveredge to give them just 
one more dance!—theirs had been such a vety short one! 
And Connie sat there and laughed and promised and 
forbade. The Colonel had disappeared. 

Then the music began again and some one came to 
claim Connie for the dance. She glanced at Marian, 
hesitated a moment, and then reaching the slender arm 
with its perfectly fitting, immaculate, white glove across 
the girl’s lap, she twitched at the sleeve of a young man 
just beyond. 

“Mr. Willett—Frank—isn’t your name Frank? No, 
don’t stop to ask me how I knew it was Frank. Well, 
I think it’s Frank anyway. I think you look as if your 
name was Frank, and that’s what I mep~ f o call you. 
Frank, have you this dance engaged?” 

Willett, the man addressed, was a simple soul and 
given to self-adulation. Besides, he had been busy else¬ 
where and had not observed the approach of Miss Lev- 
eredge’s partner. For one fatal moment he fancied—poor 
gullible youth—that Connie, smitten perhaps by his beaux 
yeux (he was a vain young man) meant to offer herself 

97 


MANY WATERS 

as a partner for this dance. He smiled fatuously and 
said eagerly: 

“No—no, indeed, I’ve not asked any one. I’m free. ,, 

“Then dance it with Miss— You’ll give it to him, 
won’t you, Miss—Miss—I don’t think I caught your 
name, but his is Willett, Mr. Frank Willett. Yes, Mr. 
Bently, I’m coming at once. So sorry to keep you 
waiting!” She whirled away in her new partner’s arms. 

The depressed Willett rose miserably and offered a 
limp hand to Marian. But his sacrifice was unnecessary; 
a cheerful voice spoke suddenly behind them: 

“I say, Willett, get out of that; this is my dance— 
promised me ever so long ago, wasn’t it, Marian?” 

And Donald was there; strode forward majestically, 
all-conquering, tossed the reluctant Willett aside like chaff 
before the wind; and before Marian quite knew where 
she was, they were out on the floor and whirling about 
faster and more recklessly than any of the others. 

It was always said of Donald Callender, wherever he 
went that he was the most perfect dancer in the world. 
Certainly it seemed so to Marian, held a willing prisoner 
in his arms, swaying in rhythm to the joyous music, feel¬ 
ing the quick pulse of delight, the abandon of physical 
motion and the keen sense of security which his prox¬ 
imity gave her. 

She saw now that in the outer rooms there were 
other girls sitting out as she had done; but with a dif¬ 
ference. They were grouped together in little bunches, 
whispering, laughing, giving the appearance of being quite 
gay in spite of everything. Or their faces wore an ex¬ 
pectant look as if their discomfiture was only temporary; 
or they were whimsically smiling as if secretly a little 
amused at finding themselves in this unusual plight. They 
waved their hands encouragingly to friends who passed 


MANY WATERS 


dizzily by, secure for the moment in masculine embrace. 

And then there were the mothers who watched these 
same daughters anxiously, with biting lips (oh, most 
bitter of wounds in the maternal breast to see one’s own 
flesh and blood slighted). These sometimes forgot to 
smile. When the girls were dancing they watched with 
strained attention, fearful for a mishap, praying, hoping 
fervently, that they might not lose their grip! 

The dance with Donald ended and he found her some 
punch. Then he led her through the rooms again and 
out into the conservatory, that crowning glory of the 
more pretentious houses of the period—a large semi¬ 
circular shaped room walled with glass and made to look 
exotic with palms, ferns, rubber plants, and a small, 
rather messy-looking pool in the centre on which floated 
a number of limp, discouraged lily pads. 

Donald led her to a white bench carved to resemble 
a marble balustrade and in the shade of a giant palm; 
and there, standing before her with one foot raised to 
the bench, he made his apologies. 

“I say, you know, I had no idea you’d been sitting 
there so long. It’s a shame! Not your fault, of course. 
But you couldn’t be expected to dance if you didn’t know 
people. I’d clean forgotten about you myself. Sorry, 
but that’s the truth of it. It’s a fact. I’m no end sorry. 
The governor came out to me here—I was sitting with 
Maisie Delano—and he butted right in. He was in a 
tearing fury, red-hot he was. Said no one was treating 
you decently; said he’d be damned if he’d stand it. That 
I’d no right to ask you here if I didn’t mean to look 
after you. Said you were the best little dancer in the 
room and had ’em all skinned for looks. Made me feel 
no end ashamed of myself. It was awfully thoughtless 
of me, but you’ll forgive me, won’t you?” 

99 


MANY WATERS 


“It doesn’t matter,” she said with proud lips. Her 
heart was fluttering strangely, mingled pain and exul¬ 
tation in her breast. 

“But it does matter,” he said, “if you were annoyed.” 

“I—I wasn’t.” She looked up at him from under low¬ 
ered lids, hoping he might not see the tears in her eyes 
or guess how close she was to breaking down. Strange, 
how it moved her to have him thus solicitous for her 
happiness. The emotion which her hurt pride had not 
drawn from her threatened to become evident now under 
the soothing influence of his sympathy. 

He stood looking down at her, wondering a little at 
her shyness. For he thought it only shyness. But the 
music was sounding again and he mercifully spoke and 
saved her. 

“There’s the next dance. Come in and have it with 
me.” 

“Not—not now,” she breathed. “You go.” 

But this he would not have. He led her back into the 
dancing room and they danced again. 

No one could have been more solicitous in looking 
after her. At the conclusion of the number they joined 
a group of young people. As with Connie, there was 
always a group about Donald when he wanted it, and 
never once did he let Marian feel she was neglected or 
unwelcome—she shared for the time being in his popu¬ 
larity, his triumph. The others subtly felt the difference 
in her status, and their attitude towards her changed 
unconsciously. The third dance began and Donald said 
to her in a low aside: 

“I’ve this one engaged—worse luck! but I’ll see you 
fixed up first. Tenniel,” he spoke with the voice of au¬ 
thority, “Tenniel, this is Miss Pritchard. Don’t know 
whether you met before.” And although nothing further 
100 


MANY WATERS 


was said Tenniel understood. It was the same man 
who had refused the Colonel the favour of dancing with 
her, but now matters were different—so strong is the 
power of influence, so keen the competitive instinct in 
men. Donald Callender for some reason found this girl 
interesting—that was enough for Tenniel. 

“May-a-have-a-pleasure ?” he asked. 

It was all so simple and agreeable now. 

Just before he left her Donald whispered to her : “Sup¬ 
per’s served after this one. I’ll come back for you.” 

But for that whisper Marian’s old feeling of dis¬ 
quietude might have come back to her when she saw 
Donald dancing with Connie, and Connie laughing so 
heartily at something he was telling her. Connie threw 
her a glance or two. It looked as if she and Donald 
were discussing her, and Marian grew a shade confused, 
and stumbled over the obsequious Tenniel’s feet. Then 
she remembered Donald’s reassuring words and forgot 
about everything else. 

He came for her soon after the dance ended as he 
had promised, but Marian was apprehensive of the 
time. 

“I—I’m afraid I can’t stay for supper. I’m to meet 
Ted at the foot of the drive at half-past eleven. It must 
be nearly that now, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, I say, but that’s a shame! Why must you go 
so early? Don’t do it; keep him waiting a bit” 

She hung her head. “But I can’t; I promised. I said 
I’d surely be there at half-past eleven. He’ll be looking 
for me.” 

He looked at his watch. 

“But it’s that now.” 

“Yes, I know. And I really think I’d better go. I’m 
sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t stay for supper.” 

IOI 


MANY WATERS 


“Well, then/’ he said, ‘Til cut it, too, and walk a ways 
down the drive with you.” 

“Oh, but I don’t want you to do that,” she protested. 

“Why not? You don’t suppose I’d let you go alone, 
do you?” 

She had no reason to give him, none to give herself, 
save those tingling apprehensions which his presence and 
his voice seemed now to rouse in her; so she remained 
dumb under his searching glance. He assumed the mat¬ 
ter settled. 

“You have a wrap?” 

“Only a scarf. I’ll get it in a second.” 

It was a relief to her to find that the impertinent 
maid, called to further duties below connected with the 
serving of supper, was gone from upstairs. She caught up 
her scarf from the bed and hurried down the stair to 
find Donald waiting for her outside the half-closed front 
door. He opened it quickly as she reached the bottom 
of the staircase and motioned her outside. His face 
looked rather flushed. 

“Don’t bother to say good night. There are so many 
here mother will never notice whether you did or not 
Come quickly; I don’t want any one to see me ducking 
the party in the middle like this!” 

Together they sped down the drive out of range of 
the lighted windows. Around a turn Donald’s speed 
lessened and he put a detaining hand on Marian’s arm. 

“Let’s take it easy here. You’ve still a few minutes 
before you’re due at the gate; and I’m blame glad to 
get away from that clatter in there for a little while.” 

So he said; but in his heart he was really wondering 
why he had come down here with her—away from the 
house, leaving all the lights and gaiety behind. It cer¬ 
tainly hadn’t been politeness alone that influenced him. 

102 


MANY WATERS 


He was always polite—at least he hoped he was—but 
it was because politeness was natural to him, as natural as 
for him to hold the centre of any stage and to always get 
what he wanted. He felt that you got on better and peo¬ 
ple liked you more if you showed good manners. More¬ 
over, it pleased him to please others. But of innate chiv¬ 
alry, of the essence of kindliness, he possessed little. If 
he had not felt impetuously impelled to go with Marian 
to-night he would have allowed her to go alone without 
the least scruple. He was essentially selfish—selfish with 
a bland assurance which, however, could not be called con¬ 
ceit—he was simply as every one agreed—charming. To¬ 
night, as usual, he had yielded to impulse. Why? 

It was a clear starlit night. Beneath the thick arching 
trees of the drive it was dark with a darkness that seemed 
soft to the touch, a tangible thing. A cool little wind had 
risen, and rustled the tree tops above them stealthily. 
Beneath, in the soft darkness, they could just make out 
one another’s figures moving silently along the hard dirt 
road. 

Again Donald put a hand upon her arm. This time 
he did not take it away but slipped it further through, 
and drew her close to him. 

“It’s so dark,” he said apologetically. 

They moved on more slowly. Where the tree shadows 
lifted somewhat and the stars shone through more clearly, 
he turned to her. She looked very delicate and ethereal in 
the dim light, her cloudy white muslin and the thin scarf 
she had wrapped about her shoulders giving her the ap¬ 
pearance of some nymph or fairy fluttering midway be¬ 
tween heaven and earth. 

The sweet scent of new-cut hay floated to them over 
the tree tops, poignantly sweet, an odour to entangle and 
dizzy the senses. 

103 


MANY WATERS 


Out of the night there came to them the sharp staccato 
cry of a whippoorwill; and a moment later a night hawk 
darted over their heads, his harsh “ping-ping” drifting 
down to them. 

“What a still night!” said Donald. 

Halfway down the drive Marian shivered slightly; and 
Donald, stopping, pulled her scarf closer about her. In 
doing so his fingers, enmeshed in the chiffon folds, 
touched her soft throat and his pulses leapt suddenly. He 
gazed at her wonderingly. 

“Wait a moment; I’m going to tuck this under so it 
won’t come loose again,” he whispered. 

He had meant to do more, but she stood there mute 
under his ministrations, so cold and white and aloof that 
he hesitated. And as before he was aware of that vague, 
indefinable something that wrapped her round even as 
the frail scarf wrapped her slender throat and hid her 
from him so that he could only glimpse the beauty be¬ 
neath—that almost palpable mantle of virginal innocence 
protecting her, that held him off and yet taunted him with 
a madding sense of futility. 

“Come/’ he said, a trifle brusquely for him, “we’ll 
walk on.” 

The trees were thicker here and the scent of new-mown 
hay more definite. Stars winked above them through 
the gently swaying branches. There was no sound but 
the faint rustling of the leaves. They seemed to be miles 
away from the house and the lights and the music. It 
was very calm and quiet in the deep shadow of the drive, 
but something seemed to be stirring him up, whispering 
to him, “You’re wasting your chances; you’re losing 
time!” And yet he appeared powerless to do anything. 

Before the last turn, a hundred yards or so from the 
gate, Marian herself paused. 

104 


MANY WATERS 


“What is it?” he asked. 

“Nothing. I thought I could hear the sea.” 

“Oh, not way back here. We never hear it at the 
house except when there’s a terrific storm.” 

Nevertheless, he paused, too. Perhaps she had heard 
it; the wind was growing stronger and the night was so 
very still. The wind sang in the tree tops. It blew a 
strand of Marian’s hair in little ripples across her 
face. 

An end of her scarf slipped away from her throat, and 
a sudden gust of air caught it and blew it across his face. 
There was a faint elusive scent in its folds, something old- 
fashioned and fragrant, as if it had lain long in old laven¬ 
der. The scent mingled with the dreaming softness of the 
summer night, a softness that spoke of whispered confi¬ 
dences and romance, and sent a little shiver, through 
him. He thrilled with a sudden sense of longing and of 
power. 

She stood before him white and cold and virginal, and 
he saw her mouth just parted, as if she were drinking in 
the loveliness of the night, perhaps thrilled as he was 
thrilled. Or were they only mocking him, cold red 
lips . . . ? 

He took a step toward her. He saw her eyes, luminous 
and lovely, staring up at him, dark in the moth-grey dusk 
—her eyes and the deliciously curved mouth. . . . Some¬ 
thing whirled in his brain like a tightly wound spring let 
go, and of a sudden he caught her to him. He caught her 
to him and in the hush of the starshine kissed the tender 
parted lips. 

She drew back from him quickly, but not before he had 
felt her lips close for a second upon his. She had not 
actually returned his kiss, but he had felt her lips there 
beneath his, warm and yielding and not unwilling. 

105 


MANY WATERS 

“Oh, no!” she cried, suddenly drawing away from 
him. 

“Ah, but I want to.” 

“Hush, hush, Ted might hear us!” 

“Don’t go!” he besought her in whispers, “don’t go!” 

“But I must, I must!” 

He saw that she was strangely excited, and that the lips 
he had kissed trembled violently. Suddenly she turned 
and ran from him. He followed her around the turn of 
the drive and stopped her with his hand upon her 
arm. 

“No, no, you must not go—not now—not yet!” 

She stood still at his command, a cloudy white figure 
in the dim starlight, mothlike in the grey dusk, obviously 
troubled and perplexed. She looked down the drive and 
saw a figure moving in the darkness between the pillars 
of the gate posts. 

“Ted’s there; I can see him.’’ 

“Pshaw! that’s too bad. Why did he have to come so 
early!” 

“I must go at once.” 

“You’re sure it is he? Well, I suppose you must, then. 
But give me something first—you must give me something 
to remind me, to make me remember to-night.” 

She hesitated a moment; then held out to him the little 
nosegay of faded flowers. 

“Yes, yes,” he cried eagerly, and took them from her 
fingers. “Good-bye. Don’t forget! Good-bye.” 

She fled from him down the drive. 

Donald turned and walked slowly, thoughtfully, back 
towards the house. The nearer he came to it the more 
rapid his pace became. Within sight of the house it quick¬ 
ened still more; and in the darkness he smiled. His ro- 
106 


MANY WATERS 

mantic mood, serious enough at the time, was rapidly 
leaving him. 

The house stood out boldly, brilliantly illuminated; he 
could hear as plainly as if he were in the midst of it, the 
laughter and gaiety within. The door was open and a 
wide shaft of light fell across the terrace. Standing in its 
blaze he looked down and saw the wilted flowers in his: 
hand. 

For a moment he hesitated, staring at them almost as 
if he had forgotten whence they had come. Then with a 
laugh he tossed them into the shrubbery by the side of the 
porch and entered the house. 

3 

All the way home, as she walked along beside Ted„ 
Marian was not treading upon mere dusty road or grassy 
path. Instead, she trod the ether, lost in a rosy cloud of 
dreams, and feeling the ground beneath her feet far less 
than the print of two strong young lips upon her own. 
She was strangely bothered by Ted’s occasional prosaic 
interruption of her golden reverie. 

“Who was that with you in the drive?’’ he asked 
abruptly, when she joined him. 

“Donald Callender. He walked down to the gate with 
me.” 

Ted appeared mollified. 

“Did you have a good time?” 

“Yes, very nice indeed.” 

“Dance?” 

“Ye-es. A number of times.” 

“Glad you went then ?” 

“Oh, yes.” 

The prim little answer held something less and some¬ 
thing more than the truth. But her responses were me- 
joy 


MANY WATERS 


chanical; her thoughts were far away. It seemed an 
endless way home. 


4 

Her mother was already in bed when they reached 
home. She did not come out of her room to greet Marian, 
and the latter crept quietly, almost guiltily, into her own 
little bedroom at the front of the house. She was glad 
her mother was not there to question her. Could her 
mother possibly guess? She heard Ted shutting up the 
house down below. 

Without undressing, she crossed at once to the window, 
and in the darkness knelt there, still in her soft white dress 
and filmy scarf; knelt there, staring out at the black 
massed trees outlined against the star-powdered heavens. 
The scent of the new-mown hay, which had thrilled her 
so in the drive, did not reach her here, but from her win¬ 
dow, in the stillness like this, the sea was plainly audible. 
It crooned a song to her, delicately insistent, which the 
softly swaying trees took up and carried on. The whole 
scene, the night, the stars, the distant murmuring ocean, 
filled her with an ecstasy almost too great to bear; thrilled 
her with happiness almost painful in its intensity. 

Suddenly she covered her face with her hands and 
bowed her head in them. “Oh, God! Oh, beauty! Oh, 
night! Oh, sea!” she murmured. It was a prayer, 
thanksgiving, dedication. 

Only the stars wheeling in their courses watched her. 
They shone down upon her bowed head and gave no sign; 
the eternal eyes of heaven that through generation after 
generation had looked down upon lovers as young, as 
hopeful, as vibrant as this one. They still watch and give 
no sign. What tales they might tell, those all-seeing, si¬ 
lent stars! 


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MANY WATERS 


But Marian was not thinking of this as she knelt there; 
only of the wonder and the joy of life. Between Donald 
and herself there had been no word of love spoken, yet 
she knew that she loved, lost now forever in the dream, 
the memory, the white wonder of that first kiss. 


CHAPTER VI 


i 

M ARIAN saw Donald twice again before he went 
back to college. The first of these occasions was 
when, in the course of the week following the 
dance, she was asked up to a tennis party at the Hall. 

There were only the house guests there and she was 
asked to fill out in doubles. She only played one set. She 
stood up with one of the visiting young men and played 
against Donald and Connie. 

Connie played in a white dress all lace ruffles, and a 
large, flapping leghorn hat with a rose placed a little to the 
left of the wide brim. She looked extraordinarily pretty 
on the white court in the glare of the summer sunlight, as 
she held up her lacy skirts with one hand, and ran, shriek¬ 
ing with laughter, after the ball, her racket waving wildly 
in the other—but it wasn’t exactly tennis. 

Marian, who had been taught by Ted Chamberlayne, 
played a firm, serious game. She had no idea herself how 
good it was, really, for Ted always beat her; but she knew 
at least that it was consistent tennis. It was something of 
a shock to her to see how Connie treated the game, and 
that the others didn’t seem to mind particularly. Ted 
would have died before he would have played in such a 
game! 

At the conclusion of their set which Marian and the 
visiting young man won with a score of six love, Connie 
fanned herself vigorously with her lace-edged handker¬ 
chief and protested, laughing: 

no 


MANY WATERS 


“I’m all in! How silly of us to play such a dreadful 
game as that on a hot day. It’s absurd! And why do you 
suppose the balls never touch my racket? I’m sure it’s 
not my fault; I run hard enough. Donny, I think there’s 
something the matter with these balls; they’ve cheated 
you. I know I ran and ran. But I shan’t any more. It’s 
ridiculous to get so overheated. I vote we call the tennis 
off for the day, and go sit under the trees on the terrace. 
I’m simply perishing of thirst. Dick will you get me a 
drink? And, Donald, will you fetch me my vanity case? 
I left it up at the house on the library table, I think. Any¬ 
way, it’s somewhere about. And do lend me your hand¬ 
kerchief to mop myself off with; mine’s simply dripping. 
What a heathenish game!” 

She had them all waiting on her and running errands. 
One or two of the other girls ventured to protest against 
this summary elimination of the tennis, but in the end 
Connie had her way. They all moved over to the shade 
of the terrace where tea was served to them over which 
Connie presided. 

Marian had been extremely silent all afternoon. She was 
always shy in strange company and the truth of the matter 
was Connie and the other girls awed her. They seemed so 
very grown up. 

She sat crosslegged on the ground, a little way from 
Connie, her racket lying across her knee. She seemed a 
bit out of it, as it were, and Connie, amused somewhat 
by her evident youth and diffidence, sought, rather good- 
naturedly, to enter into conversation with her. 

“What good tennis you play. You play a great deal, 
don’t you? You must, to be so good at it.’’ 

“Yes,” said Marian shyly. “We—we play quite a lot.” 

“You have such a good serve; who taught it to you?” 

“Ted taught me.” 


hi 


MANY WATERS 


Connie looked slightly amused and interested. 

“And who’s Ted?” 

Marian coloured furiously. 

“Ted Chamberlayne. He—he’s a man who lives at our 
house.” 

“Oh,” said Connie; and added rather irrelevantly: 
“Your mother teaches dancing, doesn’t she? Or some¬ 
thing like that?” 

“No, not dancing. She teaches riding.” 

Marian was stirring restlessly and digging her heel into 
the ground. It was really in the main only embarrassment 
at being personally addressed; it did not occur to her to 
resent Connie’s questions. 

Connie was quite aware that it was her own superior 
personality that affected Marian so detrimentally to the 
latter’s poise. She was used to being extravagantly ad¬ 
mired and accepted homage as a right. She laughed pleas¬ 
antly. 

“Dear me, child, don’t wriggle so!” 

Marian flushed and became suddenly as still as a marble 
statue. Connie, patronising still, but feeling that she 
might have been a trifle too condescending in manner, re¬ 
turned to her conversation. 

There was, in fact, only about two or three years’ dif¬ 
ference in their ages, but at that time of life it is a differ¬ 
ence of generations. Marian was too young, too inexpe¬ 
rienced, and too much impressed with a sense of Connie’s 
importance to resent anything she said. She was em¬ 
barrassed and ill at ease, wished heartily that Connie would 
turn her attention elsewhere; but she had no idea how to 
accomplish such a thing. And Connie, secure in a sense of 
her superior savoir faire, was intent, now she had begun, 
upon learning the full history of the little girl beside her. 
She was frankly greedy for knowledge, not because she 
112 


MANY WATERS 


was especially interested in Marian, but simply because 
hers was the sort of nature which finds its expression in 
questioning, and which takes account of anything which 
nearly concerns its neighbours, whether those neighbours 
are in themselves interesting or not. 

So she drove the conversation along the lines of 
Marian’s early history. Had she always lived in Whit- 
ridge? Oh, only for the last seven years? And where 
had she lived before that? And did she go to school? 
And where? 

Her thirst for information somewhat appeased, or 
perhaps bored with the commonplaceness of Marian’s his¬ 
tory, she was silent for a few minutes; and Marian hoped 
the inquisition was over. But she was mistaken. Connie 
added one more question—rather carelessly: 

“Your father’s not living, I suppose?” 

Marian, still sitting crosslegged on the ground, flushed 
darkly. 

“I—I don’t know,” she said shortly. 

“Oh,” said Connie, and stared at her with wide eyes. 
A moment later she became absorbed in the tea things. 

Marian sat with downcast eyes. It would have been 
easy to have answered “yes” to Connie’s question, but 
that solution had never occurred to her. She was not 
given to telling untruths. 

Connie, although she questioned Marian no further, 
had made a mental note of the girl’s last answer, con¬ 
necting it, with a cleverness somewhat in advance of her 
years, with Marian’s former reply about the man—what 
was his name?—Ted something, who “lived at their 
house”; and she determined later to seek information on 
the subject from Mrs. Callender. The latter, naturally, 
had not thought it necessary to inform her young guest 
of the current gossip concerning the striking-looking Mrs. 
113 


MANY WATERS 


Pritchard down in the village who had eloped with the 
young man now employed by her. It was said there that 
he had been her groom, but that was not so, although in 
the little cottage with the big riding stables and where 
money was scarce, he did perform a groom’s services. 

Mrs. Callender, heretofore, had not seen fit to men¬ 
tion the affair to Connie. It was not, she felt, a tale 
suited to the ears of a young lady brought up as Connie 
had been; but being questioned on the subject, and at 
Connie’s own request, she willingly gave her what infor¬ 
mation was at her command. 

Elaine Pritchard, well known socially in a distant city, 
it would seem, had eloped with her lover, Captain Cham- 
berlayne, once of the British army, and had taken her 
child with her. Strangely enough, the husband had not 
pursued, or if he had, they had come to an understand¬ 
ing about the child. At all events, she was left in the 
mother’s charge. 

She and her partner in sin, wearing the cloak of re¬ 
spectability, and with the statement that “this man Cham- 
berlayne” was her secretary, had come to Whitridge as a 
quiet place to live. Later, when money apparently became 
scarce (the wronged husband, however complaisant re¬ 
garding his daughter’s future, had not included in his 
generosity means for this irregular family’s support) 
later, but before things were quite thoroughly known, 
the woman had opened a riding school. She purchased a 
fine string of horses, her terms were reasonable, and 
people from Thornton and neighbouring towns became 
enthusiastic in taking up the sport. She had little diffi¬ 
culty in securing pupils; she really had a knack at teaching 
•children, it was said. She worked hard and it was sup¬ 
posed thus made a meagre living for the three of them— 
Marian, Ted and herself. Perhaps the man Chamber- 
layne had a bit of his own as well, but if so it was very 
114 


MANY WATERS 


little. Other than in their professional capacity neither 
Mrs. Pritchard, as she called herself, nor the man Cham- 
berlayne, saw anything of Thornton or Whitridge people. 
From the beginning they had shown no inclination for 
society of any sort. 

It was not until they had been some time in the village 
that the story of their relations had leaked out and the 
true state of affairs was known; although, of course, as 
in all such cases, people declared afterward that they had 
known all along how matters stood. But Mrs. Callender’s 
sister had heard it first from an intimate friend whose 
cousin lived in the same city where the Pritchards had 
formerly lived. The current newspapers of the place 
were unearthed; pictures and articles found; the news 
rushed to Whitridge. There could really be no doubt 
that these were the same people, no doubt at all in the 
matter. 

“Of course,” Mrs. Callender finished, “no one has any¬ 
thing to do with her in town, although Whitridge appears 
to be complaisant enough. She lost some pupils when 
the news came out, no doubt, but others still let her teach 
their children, and of course they’re quiet and outwardly 
behave themselves. They haven’t ever tried to know 
people. They say the child was sent home from a board¬ 
ing school where they tried to send her, on account of 
it. I think myself they should not have attempted it. 
Yet in spite of this, Colonel Callender insists upon my 
asking her here as you see, because Donald happened to 
play with her as a child.” Her tone was aggrieved, and 
there was a touch of the old rancour in her voice. 

“I thought Donald wanted her himself,” said Connie 
calmly. “And after all,” she added slowly, “it’s not the 
child’s fault.” 

“No. Naturally. But women ought to think of those 
things before they disgrace themselves. She should be 
US 


MANY WATERS 

made to see what her behaviour brings upon the 
child.” 

“Perhaps. Yes, I suppose in a way that’s so.” Connie 
was not altogether convinced. “Still,” she added brightly, 
“it’s awfully romantic, the story, don’t you think so?” 

Mrs. Callender frowned. 

“I don’t like to hear you express such sentiments, 
Connie.” 

Connie smiled indulgently. “Oh, come now, Aunt 
Clara”—she had called Mrs. Callender aunt from earliest 
infancy—“you know they don’t bring up girls now as if 
they were wrapped in cotton wool. Girls of to-day know 
things that women of sixty didn’t used to.” 

But Mrs. Callender would not agree. She repeated: 
“Especially do I not like to hear it from you because you 
know my hopes and plans about you and Donald—mine 
and your mother’s.’’ 

Connie laughed again gaily. 

“Oh, aunt, for shame! When you know we’ve agreed 
not to discuss that for years to come—four or five at 
least.” 

The older woman considered Connie’s remark in si¬ 
lence; and then decided that a slight hint of warning 
might not come amiss. In spite of Donald’s assurance 
and his three months’ superiority in age, Connie always 
seemed to her so much older, so much more experienced 
in the ways of the world than her son. She could talk 
to Connie as woman to woman. 

“There is another reason,” she said gravely, “why I 
don’t want that Pritchard child to come here. It’s on 
account of Donald.” 

“Donald!” Connie repeated, somewhat puzzled. 

“Yes. Donald’s growing up as you are, too. You’re 
young yet, both of you. Still, attachments are formed 
116 


MANY WATERS 


even as young as Donald is—permanent attachments, I 
mean. That child we are speaking of is pretty, and there 
is the fascination of the so-called romance of her sur¬ 
roundings. You yourself thought of it and spoke of it 
just now. Doubtless it makes a sort of appeal to Donald, 
too. Suppose that feeling were to ripen into something 
stronger?” 

4 ‘What!” Connie interrupted aghast, “that little thing 1” 

Then she laughed. It was too ridiculous, too prepos¬ 
terous! Donald, so debonair, so sophisticated, so pam¬ 
pered and favoured by nature, and that quiet little mouse 
of a girl, that awkward child! It was absurd! 

“Aunt Clara, you’re joking!” 

Mrs. Callender smiled complacently, and then immedi¬ 
ately looked grave. 

“I am sure I hope you are right, Connie. I earnestly 
hope so. But, Connie, ever since that woman settled 
here, years ago, I’ve had a superstitious dread that Don¬ 
ald might come to grief through them. It began, I think, 
with a quarrel I had with Peter about them, about asking 
the child here. I distrusted them from the start. It’s 
been the fear of my life that Donald might fall in love 
with the girl. I rely on you, you know, to make that 
impossible.” 

“Oh,” said Connie, very softly and thoughtfully. 

“Peter/’ Mrs. Callender added, “thinks I’m a foolish 
old woman to be considering such happenings so early.” 

Connie rose and kissed her hostess before she left the 
room. 

“I think you are, too, aunt,” she said briefly. 

2 

The second time that Marian saw Donald was when 
he said good-bye. 


MANY WATERS 


She was standing in the little main street of Whit- 
ridge, outside the general store, when Donald and his 
friends came through on horseback. A half dozen or 
more, they rode clattering past. Connie, in a red skeleton 
coat, was in the lead, the man they called Tenniel by her 
side. They did not see Marian standing by the side of 
the road. Donald was in a group closely bunched and 
following a few paces in their rear. He and one or two 
others waved to Marian as they swept by. 

A moment later Donald glanced back over his shoulder. 
Marian was still standing there gazing thoughtfully after 
them. Donald pulled in his horse and wheeling about, 
came back to her. Sitting up there above her he smiled; 
stooped low in the saddle to speak to her. 

“I stopped to say good-bye. Maybe IT1 not have an¬ 
other chance. We’re all off in the morning, the whole 
crowd. Going on to Tenniel’s place for another house 
party. I’ll go from there directly to college. I’ve got to 
be there early this year; I’m manager of the football team, 
you know. Sorry not to see you again.” 

He sat there above her looking down upon her and 
smiling his frank boyish smile. He looked very young 
and fair and very attractive and alluring, but she could 
not find the words to answer him. 

His smile became whimsical. 

“Well, have you nothing to say?” 

“I—I’m sorry you’re going.’* She felt that she was 
blushing and that it made her very absurd. “I hope you’ll 
have a good time. And—and I hope you’ll enjoy this 
year of college.” 

“That’s a sure thing.” 

He waited, tapping his boot with his crop, evidently 
expecting her to say something further. She rallied her 
forces. 


MANY WATERS 


“You’ll be back for Christmas?” 

“I hardly think so, although I’m not certain. We 
might be here but I think we’re more apt to go south. 
I rather doubt if we’ll come back here. I don’t know. 
After college closes we may go abroad again.” 

“Oh!” she said softly. 

“Well, good-bye!” He stooped low in the saddle and 
held out his hand. 

“Good-bye.” 

He was looking at the full red mouth which he had 
once kissed. Suddenly he remembered he was in Whit- 
ridge Main Street. Yet still he paused. 

“I say, we’ll ride together again when I come back, 
whenever it is.” 

“Oh, yes,” she agreed eagerly. 

“So long! That’s a promise then. Don’t forget!” 

He rode on and joined the others who had drawn up 
and were waiting for him a little further down the road. 
As he came alongside them, Tenniel slapped him on the 
back. 

“Look here, old man, you’ve got it rather bad on the 
little girl. Thought you were going to kiss her and all 
that. Connie, here, was awfully frightened. She was 
for organising a rescue party but we did our best to re¬ 
strain her.” 

Donald laughed and Connie laughed, too. She gave 
him a quick look as he pressed forward among the crowd, 
and placed himself at her side. But no one noticed the 
odd expression in her eyes. 


CHAPTER VII 


i 

M ARK WETHERELL missed Donald by only 
two days. He came home on the Saturday after 
Donald and his party left Whitridge, and 
promptly presented himself at Marian’s door. She had 
not seen him for several months-—all summer, in fact, 
and before that only in short vacation times, and her 
welcome was genuinely cordial. 

He had changed quite a bit, she noticed, and mentally 
she compared him with Donald Callender. He was some¬ 
what shorter than Donald but still half a head taller than 
herself, stockier of build, with the strong wide shoulders 
of the athlete and a fair open countenance over which 
the smiles chased one another with the changing swiftness 
of sunlight and shadow. 

He had been working, he told her, all summer, tutor¬ 
ing, doing one thing or another. Even so he didn’t know 
if there’d be enough to send him back to college this 
year. Things weren’t quite right at the rectory, and, 
anyway, his mother had wanted him to come home for a 
while. She wasn’t as well as she had been. At all events, 
there would be time enough for them to ride; his mother 
wanted him to. All this he told her within the first five 
minutes. There was no hint of disappointment or im¬ 
patience in his manner. 

After all he did go back, but not until late in the year. 
He and Marian rode together all through the long golden 
autumn. She loved being with him. There was some- 
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MANY WATERS 

thing so easy, so comfortable about their companionship. 
No one else held quite the same familiar place in her 
affections. She experienced a complete un-self-conscious¬ 
ness which had been absent in her rides with Donald. 
Here there were no flutters, no alarums and excursions 
of emotions, no nervous shrinkings, no eager dreads; in 
short, no fear at all. Thinking of this once she asked 
herself, “Is it truly love when you’re afraid?” 

But the open countenance of this large-hearted boy 
whom she knew so well could give her no answer, nor 
could the swiftly changing colours of autumn tell her; so 
she let the question slip by, living for the present in the 
joyous acclaim of hoof beats thudding in unison down 
the long miles of dusty, sun-coloured roads, cantering far 
back into the country, past luxuriant orchards heavy with 
reddening apples, and through dim woods where slow 
leaves gently falling whispered of dull, quiet days to come. 
And in the misty twilights, when the air grew suddenly 
crisp and tingling, home again on slowly lagging feet, 
clattering dreamily through the long village street where 
lights gleamed cosily in the windows, while outside the 
smouldering bonfires which the children had left and 
forgotten lifted thin grey wreathes of smoke to melt in 
the haze above, and the delicate acrid odour filled the 
air like a vague, intangible longing. 

A cheery hail at parting; then home, tired and sleepy, 
to supper, a book by the fresh living-room fire, all the 
untried wonders and glories of literature before one; then 
bed and the long, peaceful oblivion of the dreamless sleep 
of youth. 

No suggestion of anything beyond this happy com¬ 
panionship had entered Marian’s head, until one day late 
in October Mark said to her: 

“We used to ride down on Hodder’s Beach so much, 


121 


MANY WATERS 

don’t you remember? You never want to go there now; 
why is it?” 

Marian coloured furiously; and suddenly she was a 
little ashamed. 

“I don’t know. Let’s go now.” 

So they followed the sea road down to where a grey- 
green ocean thrashed angrily at the beach. Far out on 
the edge of the horizon a ship hovered, ghostly, uncer¬ 
tain. It was a dull day following one of storm, and with 
promise of storm to come. The tide was high, and only 
a narrow strip of beach, strewn with seaweed and scraps 
of wreckage, remained between the high banks beyond 
which was the road, and the swirling waters. 

“We might try a run,” Mark suggested. 

They cantered, but there was not the same spirit in it 
as heretofore. The wavelets, running far up the beach, 
eddied about Nance’s feet and the salt spray got in her 
nostrils. She shook it out impatiently and expressed dis¬ 
approval of the whole performance. Nance liked to have 
her way in these matters and, like her mistress, she was 
in no mood for Hodder’s Beach to-day. 

At the end of the run, when the horses were walking 
once more, Mark leaned over and put his hand on 
Marian’s bridle. 

“You’re not thinking of me,” he complained. 

Marian turned her grey eyes upon him for a moment. 

“I was watching that ship out there.” 

“But I don’t want you to watch ships. I want you to 
look at me.’’ 

“But what for?” 

“Because I like you to.” 

She smiled at him and glanced back at the ship. It 
was already sinking below the grey haze that masked the 
horizon. Her thoughts were far away with an invisible 
122 


MANY WATERS 


flock of sand birds, turning, glinting, fluttering out over 
a sparkling summer sea— 

The sharp sound of Mark’s horse raising his head and 
jangling the bit in his mouth brought her abruptly back 
to the present. She saw Mark gazing at her with his 
keen, open smile, and suddenly she felt terribly ashamed, 
as if she had been guilty of a disloyalty towards the boy 
beside her. 

“Tell me,” she said quickly, in order to hide her con¬ 
fusion, “you think you’ll be able to go back to college 
after all?” 

The smile disappeared from his face, but his eyes 
lighted up. “Yes,” he replied, in a voice somewhat tense 
but restrained, “I’m to go back; it’s all arranged. They’ll 
let me in again—the Dean has been awfully decent—and 
we—we think we can manage about the money.” He 
hesitated and then spoke frankly: “You see, the Colonel 
wrote—Colonel Callender—and said he’d see me through. 
My father wouldn’t hear of it at first, but he’s consented 
at last. And now my mother is so much stronger—” 

“How awfully nice,” she said, patting Nance’s neck, 
“I’m so glad for you! Only I’m sorry, too, because you’ll 
be leaving here. You’ll go soon, I suppose.” 

“Yes, very soon; next week in fact. So this may be 
our last ride together.” 

“Pm sorry,” she repeated. 

“So am I. I’ll miss these rides, I can tell you. You 
don’t know how I’ve enjoyed them. But then, I do want 
to go back. I felt so badly about it when I thought I 
couldn’t. I didn’t say anything much—I couldn’t under 
the circumstances—but I was as blue as indigo about it.” 

“It was good of the Colonel,” she said thoughtfully. 

Their horses were proceeding at a footpace along the 
hard grey sands. 


123 


MANY WATERS 


“Wasn’t it! He’s a brick, that man! Of course it’s 
all a secret, you understand—about his helping me. But 
I thought it was so corking of him that I wanted you to 
know. You won’t tell?” 

“Oh, no. But it’s splendid, isn’t it?” 

“Of course I intend to pay it back—the money, I 
mean—directly I’m out of college, if not before. I may 
be able to make it up next summer.” 

“Of course. Still, it was good of him. And how 
lovely to be able to do such things. Had—had Donald 
anything to do with it, do you think?” She felt herself 
blushing as she put the question. 

“Oh, no,” Mark replied carelessly. “Donald’s no idea 
of it. Colonel Callender said particularly that Donald 
wasn’t to know anything about it. I saw him up in town 
last week—my father and I went up, and he stipulated 
expressly that Donald wasn’t to know.” 

“I wonder why?” 

Mark flushed slightly. “I think it shows the Colonel’s 
good taste. To me it makes it all the nicer that he 
shouldn’t want any one to know. Most men, if they were 
generous like that, would want the credit of it to extend 
a little to their families. I don’t know if I can explain 
it very well—you wouldn’t understand that sort of thing 
—but most men would have wanted, unconsciously per¬ 
haps, to give their sons a chance to crow over me.” 

“Donald wouldn’t do that!” Her tone was reproving. 

Mark gave her a quick look. 

“No, really, I don’t think he would. Of course, I 
didn’t mean that quite as it sounded. I’ve always been 
too fond of Donald to think that. Still, if you’re accept¬ 
ing favours you don’t want any more people to know 
about it than have to; and the Colonel appreciates that. 
By the way, you’ve never yet told me what you think of 
124 


MANY WATERS 


Donald now you’ve seen him again. Tell me something 
about him. How did he seem ?” 

Marian hesitated, flushing. She felt strangely shy of 
speaking of Donald; yet Mark did not appear to notice 
her embarrassment. 

“Do you think he’s changed much?’’ 

“A good deal,” she admitted. 

“More than I have?” 

“You!” She looked at him with laughing, friendly 
eyes. “Why, you haven’t changed a bit. You’re ex¬ 
actly the same. And I’ve a feeling you always will be.” 

“Will be what?” 

“Exactly the same.” 

“No improvement then?’’ 

“Perhaps you don’t need any improvement.” 

“Oh, really, now, not so complimentary!” 

They both began to laugh. Yet she could see that 
Mark was pleased. She wondered faintly why she could 
never adopt this tone with Donald. Was it that he awed 
her? Was his superiority so overwhelming? Mark 
didn’t awe her in the least. She was only fond of him. 

There was silence for a time. Then Mark said, with 
a certain shy admiration, “Do you remember how you 
raced Donald and me here on the sands one day and beat 
us both?” 

“Oh, but you gave me a handicap.” 

“It didn’t matter. You were miles ahead. How you 
could run as a child! I’ve never seen any one quite so 
fleet of foot.” 

Marian laughed. “Do you remember how Donald 
dared you to wade out with your clothes on and you did, 
until I made you come back?” she rejoined eagerly. 

“Indeed, I do. If you hadn’t cried and made such a 
fuss I believe I’d still be wading out.” 

125 


MANY WATERS 


“Oh, it was so horrid! I was dreadfully upset about 
it. And it ruined your clothes.” 

“Donald didn’t care about that.” 

“No, but your mother did. I remember you weren’t 
allowed to play with us for a week afterward.” 

“Served me right! Extravagant young beggar! But, 
then, I always was inclined to take up Don’s dares. They 
were pretty wild sometimes. I don’t know what we should 
have done if we hadn’t had you there to tone us down now 
and then. How you did use to read the riot act to us 
when we took to cutting up!’’ 

“Nonsense! You two bullied me horribly! You used 
to pull my hair.” 

“Never! I never did. Donald may have. I know it 
was very long and tempting. In fact, I’m still tempted—” 

She threw him a laugh over her shoulder. 

They had come to the rocky end of the beach, and 
while they climbed the steep, narrow path up the cliff 
there was necessarily no more conversation between them. 
Mark, coming behind Marian, watched her as she leant 
well over Nance’s neck preparatory to the scramble up¬ 
ward over the loose stones, and how she seemed to signal 
the mare with scarcely perceptible motions of her hands. 
The understanding between the two, girl and horse, 
seemed very complete. He wished that he understood 
her half as well, and he sighed. 

“Let’s cut across lots, past the church,” he suggested, 
“and go back that way past the rectory. Can’t you come 
in for a moment to see my mother ? She’s feeling pretty 
fit to-day; I know she’d like to see you. She spoke last 
night about seeing you so seldom now. She said she 
believed it was years since you’d been here and 
you used to come to the house so much.” 

Marian flushed and hesitated. 

126 


MANY WATERS 

“Oh, no, I couldn’t to-day. I’m not dressed for call- 

• _ yy 

mg. 

“That doesn’t matter. You used to come, you know 
—when we played together. Do you remember the day 
I fell out of the apple tree and broke my arm?” 

“Do I! I was never so frightened in all my life!” 

“Well, I don’t believe you’ve been to the house since 
then.” 

“Oh, Mark, surely I must have.” 

“I’m certain of it. Won’t you come to-day?’’ 

Marian felt very uncomfortable. She would like to 
go, but she felt unnaturally shy about it—if it was really 
true that she had not gone for such a long time. She 
was not quite sure why she didn’t want to see Mark’s 
mother, and she couldn’t explain to him her hesitation, but 
it had to do with that half-distant day when she had been 
sent home from school and the thousand-and-one fears 
that that occurrence had engendered in her. She had not 
at that time actually resolved to forswear the society of 
Whitridge, but some such thought had taken shape in 
her mind. Nevertheless, Mrs. Wetherell had always been 
charming to her; and, after all, Donald Callender had 
kissed her. She couldn’t be such a pariah then! She 
flushed at the remembrance, but it gave her the courage 
to say: 

“All right, then, let’s do that.” 

They wheeled their horses through a gap in the broken- 
down rail fence, sagged and bent from winter winds 
and snows, and were soon trotting across the exposed 
highlands, the flat summit of which is crowned by the 
squat tower of St. Peter’s. 

The ground beneath them, stretching back from the 
edge of the cliff, was a hard, wild-looking moorland, cov¬ 
ered with low scrubby bushes and patches of coarse grass 
127 


MANY WATERS 


and heather. The arable fields surrounding Whitridge 
ceased far back behind the gradually rising headland, so 
that from here the village looked as though it were 
nestling in a valley of half-bare trees and soft-brown 
fields, ploughed, ready for the winter. 

They trotted across the bare, open moorland. It dipped 
slightly in the centre and then rose again towards the 
cottages surrounding the life-saving station. Here was 
the road which, passing close to the cottages, wound up¬ 
ward to the church above, and back to Whitridge. Oppo¬ 
site the cottages, on the southern slope of the headland, 
where the rising ground behind gave some slight protec¬ 
tion, some one had made a faint attempt at a garden. 

Mark and Marian rode on and came presently to a high 
fence with a gate. Mark dismounted and tried it. It was 
locked. 

“We should have come out higher up,” he said. “I’d 
forgotten about this, though I did hear they’d fenced it 
in. It belongs to the cottages, you know.’’ He fingered 
the gate. 

Marian looked at it critically. “Nance could jump it, 
I think; though I’ve never given her much of that to 
do.” 

Mark glanced at her half angrily. 

“Don’t be absurd! Do you think I’m going to let 
you break your neck?” 

She was looking backward. 

“There’s plenty of space for a good run.” 

But a man had come out onto the porch of one of 
the cottages—a fat man, with a singularly unpreposses¬ 
sing beard, and collarless. Mark hailed him. 

“Hi there, you! Can’t we get through here? This 
gate’s locked.” 

The man inspected them coolly from across the road. 
128 


MANY WATERS 


“Can’t say, young fella! That’s private property you’re 

_ )) 

on. 

“I know/’ Mark responded impatiently, “but we’d for¬ 
gotten it was fenced. It never used to be, you know. ,, 

“Well, ’tis now,” the man remarked laconically. 

Mark grew very red in the face. 

“I’m the rector’s son,” he announced loftily. 

“Be you now?’’ said the man. “And what of it?” 

“I thought you might let us through.” 

“Oh, did you!” He came down from the porch, crossed 
the road at a leisurely pace and stood near them, leaning 
his arms on the fence. 

Marian broke in abruptly; it seemed to her that Mark 
was managing the thing badly. 

“We can go back a little way and around by the edge 
of the cliff so as to come out by the church. The fence 
doesn’t run quite all the way to the edge, you see.” 

“ ’Taint very safe that close to the cliff’s edge,” the 
man answered her suggestion. Mark turned irritably. 

“You might at least tell us whether you could let us 
through if you wanted to. Can you?” 

“I don’t say I could and I don’t say I couldn’t.” 

The man was maddeningly annoying. 

“Well, then, why won’t you let us through?” Mark 
was keeping his temper with difficulty. But Marian didn’t 
keep hers at all. She didn’t look at the man, but she spoke 
swiftly to Mark as she wheeled Nance about: 

“Tell him to stand aside; I’m going to jump it.” 

“You’re not!” 

“I am.” 

He started toward her, but already she had Nance in 
position for the run. A short, sharp canter, an instant of 
poised suspense, a sudden upward rush—Nance was over 
the fence like a bird. 


129 


MANY WATERS 


“Hurrah !’’ cried the fat man involuntarily. 

Marian trotted back towards them and stood still, 
waiting for Mark. 

Mark had sprung into his saddle. He rode his horse 
back for the run Marian had taken; dashed at the fence. 
The horse came to a dead stop just on the other side. It 
was with difficulty that Mark stayed in the saddle. 

“Curse you!” he muttered to the horse. 

“You be rector’s son,” the fat man reminded him. 
He seemed very much amused at the whole performance, 
as if he were witnessing an entertainment expressly given 
for his benefit. 

Without regarding him Mark wheeled the horse about, 
ran him back and over the same ground, with the same 
result as before. 

“You must lift him, Mark,” said Marian gravely from 
the road. 

The boy set his teeth grimly and turned the horse about 
for a third try. But the fat man was evidently relenting. 

“Here, here,” he said, “don’t try that any more. You’ll 
get yourself hurt. I’ll open the gate for ye. Wait a 
minute; you can come through.” 

“I will not,’* declared Mark hotly. “I’m going over!” 

He rode again at the gate, and again the horse failed. 
He half rose, fumbled, fell against the fence and stood 
quivering with fear and anger, Mark still astride him, 
tight-lipped and white with annoyance. He was prepar¬ 
ing for another try when the fat man interposed. 

“Just see here, young fella, I’m not a-going to let you 
break down my fence so as t’ satisfy your stinking pride. 
You stand away from there a minute.” He hurriedly 
unlocked the gate. “Now then have a little sense and 
come through here.” He threw the gate wide. “That 
other’s too dangerous.” 

130 


MANY WATERS 


“I’m going over,” said Mark obstinrtely. 

‘‘Better come through, Mark.” Marian spoke quietly, 
but decisively. “You can’t get a horse to take a jump 
like that if he’s badly frightened. See, he’s trembling. 
You’ll only hurt him if you try again. Please don’t. I 
know about horses.” 

Reluctantly Mark yielded; he rode the horse igno- 
miniously through the open gateway. 

“Thank you,” he said ungraciously to the fat man. 
They left him behind and followed the road on up past 
the church, standing grey as a shadow in the midst of the 
moorland. They could hear the waves gently lapping the 
beach far below them. Now that they had left the cot¬ 
tages around the lower turn, there did not appear to be 
another human being for miles and miles around. 

It was all very peaceful and lovely alone here on the 
headland on this still, grey day—grey church, grey skies, 
grey stretches of moorland and grey, monotonous sea, 
but these two who viewed it were restless and ill at ease. 
There was a strained self-consciousness; a stark, unnat¬ 
ural mauvaise honte obtruded itself upon them. 

“I’ve made a fool of myself! I’m a laughing-stock! 
I’ve let a cursed horse get the better of me and shown 
that I don’t know anything; and all because of a disagree¬ 
able, obstinate old man!” was Mark’s thought. And 
Marian, in spite of herself, was thinking: “Donald would 
have managed it differently. If he’d been in Mark’s 
place the man would have let us through at once. No 
one ever refused Donald anything.’’ She felt ashamed 
of herself even while she thought it. 

They passed at a walk around the front of the church. 

“It’s a pity they didn’t put the church near enough to 
the edge for you to see it from the beach,” Marian re¬ 
marked conversationally. 

131 


MANY WATERS 


“If they had it might tumble over on you some time. 
The cliff there crumbles all the time. That’s why there 
are always so many loose stones at this end of the beach.” 

There was no enthusiasm in his response. 

“Shall we ride out to the edge and look over?” Marian 
ventured timidly. 

“You can, if you like. I’m not going to chance it. 
It would be just my luck to go over the cliff.” He 
laughed scornfully. “No need of trying to hide the white 
feather to-day, is there ? I’ve proved what I can do.” 

She gave him a look vaguely troubled and embarrassed. 

“Oh, never mind; we won’t, then. I don’t care 
about it.” 

They turned the horses in the direction of Whitridge. 
The road from here on was a straight gentle slope. They 
rode silently, rather slowly, trotting where the road was 
flat enough to warrant it. Marian glanced at her com¬ 
panion from time to time with faint inquiry. At last she 
said: 

“Ted wouldn’t like it if he knew I’d taken Nance over 
that fence. Our horses aren’t much used to jumping. 
He thinks it’s bad for them.” 

“I expect it is.” 

He was superbly indifferent to her half-spoken peni¬ 
tence. 

“We have to be careful of our horses. You see, they’re 
about all we’ve got.” 

Mark’s mouth was grimly set. 

“You know how to jump, however.” 

“Yes.” 

Silence again for another quarter mile. 

“Mark,” she said suddenly, “are you angry with me?” 

He denied it coldly. “No. Why should I be?” 

“I—I thought, perhaps—because I jumped the fence—” 
132 


MANY WATERS 

“Why shouldn’t you jump it if you wanted to? Have 
I complained?” 

“Oh, no! Only I thought that—that perhaps—per¬ 
haps—” 

“You don’t think I’m blaming you because I’m a rotten 
rider, do you?” 

“Oh, it wasn’t that!” This very quickly. “And that’s 
really a fearfully high jump.” 

“Was it? I don’t know.” 

She opened her eyes wide. 

“Surely you’ve jumped before?” 

“Never!” 

“Mark! To try a fence like that the first time!” 

“You did it,” he said obstinately. 

She answered him quickly: “Yes, but it was higher 
than I thought. When Nance went up and up I thought 
we were never coming down again. You’ve no idea how 
frightened I was.” 

“You took it like a breeze,” he said gloomily; but he 
felt better. 

They came to the rectory, standing back from the 
road in its woodsy setting, with the white picket fence 
surrounding it. Marian looked inquiringly at Mark. 

“It’s rather late,” she suggested. 

“Oh no, it’s not. Come in.” 

They turned in at the gate and rode up to the low- 
porched old house. 

Cynthia Wether ell came to the doorway to meet them. 
She was very thin and pale and prematurely aged, so that 
she looked old to be Mark’s mother. But her gracious¬ 
ness had been proof against the years of ill health and 
constantly needed courage. She greeted the girl warmly 
and led her into the rector’s library, a tall, well-lighted 
room with bookcases running up to the ceiling. 

133 


MANY WATERS 


“Mark said he would try to get you to stop to-day, but 
I didn’t know whether you’d be back in time or not. He’s 
going to leave me again, you know. I suppose he has 
told you.” 

She laid her hand affectionately on Mark’s arm. 
“Mark dear, go into the pantry and bring in the tea tray 
that’s there. I told Jane she needn’t bother about it. 
It’s all ready, but I didn’t want it in here until I was 
sure you were coming.” 

Mark disappeared into the pantry, and Cynthia turned 
once more to Marian. 

“And how have you been, my dear? It is so very long 
since you have been here. Why haven’t you come?” 

Marian felt herself flushing and tried awkwardly to 
cover her confusion: 

“Mark wasn’t here. I didn’t think you wanted to see 
me particularly. I’ve been busy at school —■* 

Mark returned with the tea tray and set it beside his 
mother on the polished-oak table. She poured them tea 
and passed them big pieces of thick black chocolate cake— 
the kind of cake that youth always loves; and while they 
sipped and ate, she talked charmingly of inconsequential 
things, that the size of their appetities might not be ap¬ 
parent even to themselves. She had a ready tact and a 
keen appreciation of the misgivings and diffidence of 
young people. Marian, under this kindly hospitality, felt 
hers rapidly slipping away from her. She found herself 
talking quite volubly for her; and was astonished when 
she rose to go, to find how late it was. 

“You must come to see me sometimes after Mark 
goes,” Cynthia said to her in parting. “I’ll be very much 
alone then, you know.” Marian promised she would 
come. 

Mark rode home with her in the gradually deepening 
134 


MANY WATERS 

twilight. He seemed mysteriously to have recovered his 
good humour. 

“I suppose you think I’ve made an awful ass of my¬ 
self this afternoon,” he said to her half-way home. 

She was silent for a moment. Then she said quickly: 

“I—I’m sorry I jumped it, Mark! Truly I am!” 

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, irritated, and yet some¬ 
how comforted. “Please don’t talk about it any more. 
I wish you’d let the thing rest.” 

“All right,” she said obediently. 

At the entrance of the cottage driveway he turned to 
her. 

“Marian,” he said, “I might not see you again before 
I go. At least, we mayn’t ever be together again like 
this. Marian, do you suppose you would—because I’m 
going away and all—would you—” 

Instinctively she knew what was coming. The knowl¬ 
edge filled her with a strange disquietude. She felt, 
not frightened, but dreadfully aware that she was going 
to hurt him. They had both dismounted. Now he came 
a step nearer to her, still holding his horse’s reins over 
his arm. 

“Marian, won’t you—” 

“I can’t, Mark, truly I can’t!” She drew back hastily. 
She felt floods of colour rushing over her whole body. “I 
can’t!” 

“I’m sorry,” he said simply. 

“I can’t,” she repeated, “honestly I can’t, Mark. I 
would—I would, only— Oh, you’ll just have to believe 
it, Mark, for I can’t tell you why.” 

“No matter,” he said cheerfully. “I only thought be¬ 
cause we were such old friends—” He broke off; sprang 
into the saddle. 


135 


MANY WATERS 


‘‘Good-bye,’ 7 he called to her. “It’s all right. Don’t 
worry.” 

“Good-bye!” 

She watched him down the road, then turned and led 
Nance up the drive to the cottage. She felt very unkind 
and disobliging. Yet how could she have done otherwise 
after Donald had— In the half darkness she blushed 
rosily. No, she couldn’t have done otherwise. She was 
fond of Mark, very fond of him, but her lips from hence¬ 
forth, forevermore, were Donald’s. 


CHAPTER VIII 


i 

S Mark had prophesied, the ride along Hodderis 
Beach was the last they had together that year. 

There was a storm of several days’ duration, 
and by the time the roads were fit again Mark had left for 
college. 

For Marian, after he had gone, there were rides alone; 
rides through dull November browns and drabs in deep 
chilling silences when Nance’s hoof beats on the hard 
ground sounded like an armament in the keen clear air. 
Gone the yellow and the changing leaf, the crimson and 
the gold; yet the leaden skies held, instead of regrets, 
memories of past days and joy and, better still, promises 
for the future. “There is no greater sorrow than the re¬ 
membrance of happier days,” says the poet, but that is 
only true when one is old or, at least, aging. Regret such 
as that is not for the very young. For youth there is 
always a poignant sweetness in melancholy, a fragrant 
pathos in the recalling of old, dead days and joys, but 
ah! there are also promises of days and joys to come; 
the rosy-coloured future is never really lost sight of. 

Marian thought often of the future; and of Mark and 
Donald, but I am afraid more often of the latter than the 
former. Since that night of the dance he had taken his 
place as the hero of her imagination. She looked for¬ 
ward so eagerly to seeing him again, and the question, 

137 


MANY WATERS 


when would he be home once more, occurred to her con¬ 
stantly. Christmas, would he come at Christmas ? Surely 
there was a strong possibility of it. She watched the 
attenuated days of chill November draw to a sombre 
close, saw December come in with a flurry of snow 
followed by a week’s rain and biting cold; and was glad 
because it brought the holidays nearer. 

Holidays! Youth! On with the seasons; on with 
the days, months, years; faster, faster ! Youth lives for 
to-morrow, careless of the passing moments. Alas! oh, 
fond, oh, foolish youth! How you will hoard those idle 
passing moments later! How you will niggle and scheme 
to drag them out, and drag them out a little longer, only 
a little longer! counting, praying for more; giving them 
grudgingly into the maw of time, still hoping, how vainly, 
“from the dregs of life to receive what the first sprightly 
running could not give.” Ah, bitter, bitter regrets ! How 
precious they will seem to you then, those lost, uncounted 
hours flung now so carelessly away! 

But now is the time of rejoicing, of dreams, of high 
hopes and aspirations. When life’s at the spring, no mat¬ 
ter what the season! On with the years, on with them, 
hurry them, scatter them, squander them! What matter 
if to-day be lost? To-morrow comes soon, and another 
morrow after that, and another and another. So many, 
so illimitable, those to-morrows! Alas! when one is 
young. 

Christmas came, but Donald Callendar remained away 
from Whitridge. Christmas with its holly and ever¬ 
greens and general air of festivity; but the Hall was not 
opened. The long drifts formed on the roadway up the 
hill, only disturbed by the postman on his solitary 
rounds, or the rapid passing of one of the men from the 
Hall stables out in a cutter exercising the horses. Still 

138 


MANY WATERS 

and white the long snow fields stretched endlessly away 
on every side. 

Donald Callender remained away, but Mark Wetherell 
came home. Marian met him in the main street of Whit- 
ridge one afternoon, just at the close of a clear, crisp, 
wintry day. It was but a short three days to Christmas 
and the little village was already in holiday attire. There 
was that joyful air of bustle and suppressed excitement 
about the streets, that atmosphere so significant of small 
places at this season. It was as if Christmas was an event 
known and celebrated only in Whitridge. 

Marian had been shopping; her arms were full of 
bundles. She wore a little sealskin cap and a sealskin 
tippet caught close under her chin. Mark had been star¬ 
ing at her for several minutes before she saw him and 
called out a joyous greeting. 

He crossed the street to her side. There was a queer, 
stifled feeling about his heart. He saw that, close to, 
she looked even prettier. Her eyes, eager with excite¬ 
ment, were clear and bright; her cheeks in the sharp air 
as rosy as the little berries on the sprig of holly that 
nestled in the soft brown fur at her throat. 

“Christmas shopping, are you?’’ he asked. “You’re still 
at it?” 

“I’ve just finished the last errand. It’s a comforter 
for old Mr. Horner, and a toy for his little grandchild. 
It’s a new kind of jumping jack. I just found it in 
Smith’s shop. See! Isn’t it cunning?” 

She quickly unwrapped the painted toy from its paper 
covering and held it out for his inspection. 

“It works like this, with a handle.” 

She turned the handle and the doll moved up and 
down on its stick. 

“Isn’t that nice?” 


139 


MANY WATERS 


“Yes, it’s great. The little tike will be tickled to death 
with it. Here, let me help you wrap it up again.’’ 

She was trying to do it herself, but the other packages 
got in her way. Mark attempted to help her, but they 
dropped the string between them and then the paper 
began to tear. The stick would protrude through the 
paper so that at last they had to give it up altogether. 

“Never mind,” he said, “let me carry it home for you. 
I’ve nothing to do. Give me some others.” 

She surrendered to him two or three, saying: “No, 
no, no more!” when he would have taken them all. 

They started to walk down the long village street where 
the lighted windows cast long bars of colour on the snow. 
Glancing within, they caught here and there a glimpse of 
family life; a village parlour in festive array, a tired work¬ 
man home again among his children, all the sweet fa¬ 
miliarity of unpretentious domesticity. Outside before 
them was the long village street, its lights twinkling ahead 
in the velvet distance as the road wound upward towards 
the Callender hill, past the cottage. 

“I’ve bought a pair of gloves for my mother,” Marian 
was telling Mark, “and a key ring for Ted. It’s not really 
a key ring but a little pocketbook with rings in it to hang 
keys on. I’ve got it somewhere here. I’ll show it to you. 
Here it is. It opens with a snap, like this. What do you 
think of it? A good choice for Ted, don’t you think? 
The woman in Smith’s said he was sure to like it. She 
knew, because she says men come in and buy them for 
themselves sometimes, which shows they must think 
they’re useful. Don’t you think so?” 

Mark was silent, looking at the little leather atrocity 
held in her outstretched hand. He had not heard her ques¬ 
tion: “Isn’t it really useful?” He was too busy watch¬ 
ing her. But she misread his silence and her face fell. 

140 


MANY WATERS 


“Oh, dear!” she sighed, “and I thought I had been 
so clever to pick it out.” 

He recovered himself with a start. 

“It’s splendid!” he said. “The finest thing in the world 
for a man like that who has to carry a lot of keys.” 
And suddenly he loved her adorable simplicity and the 
earnest preoccupation of her knit brows. 

She brightened at his words of eager assurance; and 
together they started to climb the long grade of the hill 
between Whitridge and the cottage. 

They left the village and its lights behind. On all 
sides of them were the long, blank, snow-clouded fields 
seeming to light with their own still white splendour the 
surrounding country. There was the faint crunching of 
their feet on the hard snow. Mark did not speak, but 
his heart was singing: “Noel! Noel!” the song his 
mother sang occasionally in the dim drawing-room of the 
rectory. “Noel! Noel!” the words seemed to express 
all that the rapture of the moment made him feel. He 
did not think of the words as anything definite in them¬ 
selves. It was all part of the winter twilight, of the 
lights and the holly wreaths in the Whitridge windows, 
of the singing joy of youth, and of Marian walking so 
sedately beside him. And above all was the spirit of 
Christmas. 

It was still not quite dark. Looking out over the long 
white fields, their fences and hedges sharply outlined in 
black, they could see the lights of the cottage twinkling 
mistily. The damp air clung to their lips; there was a 
moist, sweet, coolness all about them, the coolness of a 
winter evening. The road grew steeper; and as they 
neared the cottage they could hear the distant booming 
of the sea. 

Outside the gate of the drive they paused. Mark felt 
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MANY WATERS 


his heart suddenly beating in an odd, rather terrifying 
way. He looked at Marian. She had taken the toy, the 
jumping jack, from his arms and was holding out her 
hand for the other packages. 

“Marian,” he said suddenly, “there’s something I want 
to say to you.” 

“Yes, Mark?” 

She looked up at him, a perplexed little smile trembling 
on her lips. His manner was rather odd. She remem¬ 
bered in a flash how, the last time she had been with 
him, he had asked to kiss her—or almost asked. Was he 
going to do that again, now? She flushed and quivered 
slightly. Mark felt rather than saw her apprehension. 

“I—I know you’ll think me a fool,” he began awk¬ 
wardly. “I suppose I am one, only no one would think 
I was because of my wanting to say this to you; only be¬ 
cause I am saying it. I—I expect you’ve guessed before 
now, Marian, that I—that I care for you. A lot, I mean 
—the way people do when they want to get married. 
Would you do that—marry me, dear—some time?’’ 

He paused; and as once before in this same place she 
replied: 

“I can’t, Mark, I can’t, truly!” She felt horribly em¬ 
barrassed. 

Mark was conciliatory. “Oh, I don’t mean right now, 
dear. I mean later—years later. We’re both awfully 
young, really. I just mean I wish you’d think about its 
happening some time.” 

“I couldn’t, Mark. I know I couldn’t ever!” 

“You seem pretty sure,” he said ruefully. 

“Yes, I am.” 

He looked at the troubled little face gazing up at his in 
such serious distress; and all at once he wanted to com- 

142 


MANY WATERS 


fort her rather than himself. He felt, quixotically, as 
if he had been unkind. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. 

“Never mind, dear,” he said gently. “We’ll forget 
what I said, though I don’t mind telling you I’ll come 
back later, after I’m through college. Maybe you’ll listen 
to me then.” 

“I’ll always listen to you, Mark.” 

He smiled. 

“Well, maybe then you’ll do what I ask/’ 

She shook her head doubtfully. “I’m afraid not, 
Mark.” 

“I’ll chance it,” he said. “But, Marian, promise me, 
at least, that you won’t get engaged to any one else 
without letting me know.” 

Her colour deepened suddenly. Even in the half dark¬ 
ness he could see it. 

“I’m not engaged, Mark.” 

“No, I didn’t think you were. Well, don’t give any one 
the chance you wouldn’t give me—at least to tell you how 
I feel. That’s all right then. I don’t want you to prom¬ 
ise anything more. We’ll forget for the present that I’ve 
spoken. Good-bye, dear; and don’t worry.” 

“Good-bye, Mark.” 

She went up the snow-covered drive towards the 
twinkling lights of the cottage, and Mark turned and 
strode manfully back towards Whitridge; but for both 
of them some of the cheerfulness was gone from the day. 

2 

The new year came and went, slipping almost imper¬ 
ceptibly from winter into spring, from spring to sum¬ 
mer. June came and passed, and summer ripened 
thoughtfully to a luscious autumn and still Donald Cal¬ 
lender remained away from Whitridge. 

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MANY WATERS 


Marian heard of him from time to time, stray mention 
of him from the lips of gossiping villagers. He and his 
mother were travelling in France; he and his father had 
gone to Montana to look at some mines in which the 
Colonel was interested; he was manging the football team 
again this year at college; it was rumoured that he was 
amazingly popular and much in demand at social func¬ 
tions. He would be home, doubtless, for this or that 
occasion; nevertheless, he stayed away. 

The whole year and another one following slipped 
by. Marian saw Mark during various vacations and vis¬ 
its home; but he was never in Whitridge for long and 
they were not so much together as formerly. They were 
still friends, but the memory of that scene in the snow 
outside the cottage gate remained as a barrier to their old 
intimacy, try as they would to overcome it. On the 
Christmas following, Mark, as well as Donald, remained 
away. 

So the years passed. Marian finished her schooling at 
the old ivy-covered “Academy” in Thornton whither she 
had gone from old Mr. Horner’s patient tutelage. In 
the spring and fall she rode thither on her bicycle. When 
the weather grew too cold for that, Ted drove her in 
behind one of the trotters. A jingle of sleigh bells, a 
flurry of snow, a wave of Ted’s whip, and the cutter was 
off. She loved the long crisp drives in the cool morn¬ 
ings ; or, later in the season, when the cutter was changed 
for the neat little buggy, seated close beside Ted, it was 
fun to listen to the click of the horses’ hoofs as they 
dashed up the hill past the entrance to the Hall. Always in 
her mind was the unspoken thought, “Some day we may 
meet him coming down. Some day he’ll be here again.” 

So her school days passed, happy in the main. She 
was good at athletics and enjoyed a small local fame for 

144 


MANY WATERS 


her prowess therein. The other girls were kind to her. 
She made friends; but unlike most girls, no one particu¬ 
lar friend to be singled out as a recipient of confidences 
or an object of passionate adoration. In this respect she 
remained supremely aloof. 

And such friends as she had made she saw seldom 
after she left school. Instead of running frequently in 
to Thornton, she busied herself at home with the house¬ 
keeping. There were many improvements to be made 
along this line in the cottage below the hill. Elaine 
Pritchard had no aptitude for the making of a home, even 
under the best of circumstances. As it was, the cottage 
offered a wide field for Marian’s endeavours. Her mother 
and Ted accepted the innovations with a certain indefinite 
satisfaction mixed with a mild surprise. Elaine declared 
that she had no idea Marian would turn out so capable. 
Ted occasionally wondered why they had never thought 
of such and such a thing before. But for the most part 
they both accepted Marian’s ministrations as a matter of 
course. It did not occur to Elaine Pritchard to enquire 
into the state of her daughter’s mind at this time, to as¬ 
certain whether or not she was happy, whether or not 
there might be problems which she could help her solve. 

3 

On a day about a year after her graduation from 
Thornton Academy, Marian went to pay a call on old Mr. 
Horner. He had been for several generations teacher of 
the grammar school in Whitridge, but within the last 
year had retired, and lived with his married daughter and 
her family in a little cottage close to the Tonomet road. 

The house itself, a tiny affair of brown, weather- 
stained shingles, was almost hidden from the road by 
masses of stocks, marigolds and hollyhocks all bravely 

145 


MANY WATERS 


blooming. It appeared to be literally buried in bloom. 
For, where the ordinary gardener could bring one flower 
to bear, dozens blossomed for the painstaking old man 
who appeared to have an equal facility in the handling of 
young plants as of young persons. His pupils always 
loved him and his success as a schoolmaster was a well- 
known local fact. 

Marian on this bright June day was careful to pluck a 
neat little bouquet of their own flowers to take him, al¬ 
though she was well aware of the wealth of flowers in the 
midst of which he lived; but she knew that of all gifts 
this would be the most acceptable. It was a long time 
since she had been to see him and she had heard that he 
was ailing of late. She thought to herself how very old 
he must be—perhaps seventy or more. It would be a 
kind thing to visit him. 

She found him sitting on the steps of his little tumble- 
down porch sorting seeds from a box before him. His 
grandchild, now a little girl of four, was playing on the 
stones below. 

Marian stopped to speak to the child who paused a mo¬ 
ment, long enough to gravely consider their guest, then 
continued her earnest playing. Marian went on up the 
steps and seated herself by the old man’s side. He had 
partly risen at her approach but she motioned him not to 
move. 

He thanked her, complaining of a touch of rheumatism 
in the back, and gravely pushed aside his box to make 
room for her on the steps. He was a small, wizened little 
man with a deprecating expression and a certain soft 
gentleness of manner which gave an almost womanly 
twist to his character without his being in the least ef¬ 
feminate, nevertheless. 

He accepted her tribute of flowers with a gracious 
146 


MANY WATERS 


smile, and taking in his hands one of the blue delphinium 
blossoms, called her attention to the delicate workman¬ 
ship of its petals, the highly decorative outline, the soft 
shading of the rich colour. Marian listened eagerly. He 
seemed always to have some new light to throw on a sub¬ 
ject however trite or commonplace, some little point to 
call the attention to that others would overlook. His 
language was as simple as a child’s and yet his knowl¬ 
edge was great. No one could hear him speak without 
at once realising that. 

They had talked for some time and at last Marian rose 
to go. The child, playing now down by the gate, turned 
suddenly and ran swiftly towards them, too swiftly; for 
on the uneven paving stones she stumbled and fell. 

Immediately howls rent the air. Marian hastened to 
her side and had the child upon her feet before old Mr. 
Horner, moving with some difficulty, joined them. A 
rapid survey of the damage showed only minor scratches. 
Convinced of this fact the child’s sobs gradually sub¬ 
sided. 

Smiling a little, old Mr. Horner turned to his guest. 
“My dear Marian,” he said, “it is a strange thing in life 
to observe how in early years one’s emotion is entirely 
disproportionate to the circumstances. It changes gradu¬ 
ally all through life. As your troubles grow greater you 
cry less.” 

As your troubles grow greater you cry less; they were 
words she was to remember always. 

Marian looked at her host with a sudden new interest. 
Somehow she had never thought of him as having trou¬ 
bles. He was too commonplace, too unromantic, his life 
too meagre; and yet now, all at once, she saw that it is 
not the material surroundings of a man that make or 
unmake his general disposition, but only the individual- 

147 


MANY WATERS 


ity—that thing apart which daily guides and interprets 
his actions. To such a one there may be romance in the 
budding of a flower, companionship in the running of a 
stream, and the delight of all creation in the swift flight 
of birds. She felt a new respect for the man before her 
and a sudden new awe of life itself as she now saw it. 
Ah! it was all very mystical and wonderful. 

Perhaps old Mr. Horner guessed something of what 
was passing in her mind. He looked at her with eyes a 
little vague and troubled. 

“You’re not doing anything now, Marian? Not think¬ 
ing of working or studying at anything?” 

She shook her head. “Just housekeeping for the 
present.” 

“That may not satisfy you always, my dear.” 

“No, I know. But it keeps me pretty busy. And I 
ride a great deal.” 

“Good!” he said. “That’s good for you. Keep what 
pleasures you can from your youth. They help. You 
mustn’t expect too much from life, you know, or you’re 
liable to be disappointed; yet you must always be ready to 
find happiness in everything—even housekeeping.’* 

They both smiled, and Marian held out her hand. 

“I must go now, Mr. Horner. Thank you for my 
nice talk.” 

“And you, my dear child, I am grateful to you for 
your kindness in coming. And for the flowers.” 

He walked with her to the gate and there watched 
her until she disappeared down the road. 

He shook his head reflectively as he followed her re¬ 
treating figure with his eyes. 

“Poor little girl! I’m afraid she has a hard road ahead 
of her. A lovely girl! Too bad, too bad!” 

He went back to the sorting of his seeds. 

148 


CHAPTER IX 


i 

M ARIAN, after she left Mr. Horner’s house, 
walked back along the Tonomet road and 
through Whitridge’s main street. 

It was shady in the village. The elm trees bordering 
the road grew close together all along the street. The 
warm yellow sunlight filtered through their leaves, mak¬ 
ing fanciful patterns on the dull brick pavements and the 
dirt paths beyond. 

Quiet, like a thick blanket, hung over the houses, that 
peculiar hush, remote and indescribable, which is the dis¬ 
tinct attribute of a village street in the depth of a summer 
afternoon. From time to time a cock crowed tentatively. 
Some children at play in a field behind the village shouted 
now and again, but their fresh young voices came dulled 
by distance to a pleasant monotone. Otherwise all was 
silent. No sound came from the blacksmith shop at the 
end of the street, and when she passed it, Marian saw 
that the place was empty, although the doors were wide 
open. By Mrs. Jerrold’s, the hotel keeper’s, one old man 
sat out on the lawn, under the trees, reading a paper. 
From time to time he spat reflectively. No other human 
being was visible. 

Marian went to the end of the street and turned sharply 
at Pennyman’s corner. Whitridge clusters rather closely 
about its main street and there were few houses here. She 
turned into the half lane and half side street which was 

149 


MANY WATERS 


her direct route to the cottage, and came face to face 
with Donald Callender. 

Marian paused with a little gasp of astonishment. Sud¬ 
denly her knees felt weak and shaky beneath her. She 
fancied that she had grown suddenly pale. All strength 
seemed to leave her body; the earth reeled dizzily. 

Donald did not appear at all affected by the encounter. 
He answered her quick, startled, “Donald!’’ with a smile 
and stretched-out hand. 

“Marian Pritchard!’’ he exclaimed. 

She took his hand and suddenly felt the world come 
back to normal again. 

“When did you come? I didn’t know you were back. 
How long have you been here?” 

“Only since yesterday. We came last night. Mother 
and father and Connie Leveredge—you remember her, 
don’t you?—and myself. We’re here for a little while, 
anyway, I don’t know how long. We’ve no particular 
plans for the present. Connie’s people have gone abroad 
and so she’s with us for the time being, has been for a 
month or so. And how have you been?” 

“Oh, all right.” Marian waved aside the question of 
her own health. “But it’s so long since you’ve been here— 
since that dance and all—” She coloured violently and 
continued hastily, “I’ve wondered where you were, and 
why you didn’t come home. Why, it’s years since we’ve 
seen one another!” She felt that her words were ter¬ 
ribly inept. 

In the silence that followed her quick, eager sentence, 
Donald looked at her more closely. 

She was pretty, he decided. In the two years since he 
had seen her she had improved wonderfully. He could 
not tell exactly how or where, but she was certainly dif¬ 
ferent. But she was still a good deal of a child. Don- 

150 


MANY WATERS 


aid, fresh from prom week and numerous social successes, 
was in a mood for conquests. He accepted her naive 
homage with a fine grace. It rather amused him that she 
should be so obviously “mashed” on him, amused him, 
but did not appear to him in any way extraordinary. He 
felt for her a kindly tolerance. And, after all, there 
weren’t many girls in Whitridge or Thornton. 

He detained her a moment while he ran into Penny- 
man’s store, and then joining her, walked back with her 
in the direction of the cottage. 

At the gate they parted. . . . 

“You’ll come then?” he asked. 

“Yes.” 

“You’ll know the way all right, and you won’t forget?” 

“Oh, no. I won’t forget.” 

“And you’ll remember to say nothing about it?” 

She hesitated an instant; then shook her head in the 
affirmative. 

“All right. I’ll see you later then. You’re sure you’re 
not afraid?” 

“Oh, no.” 

She watched him go on up the hill towards the Hall. 
2 

Marian slipped out from the house and walked rapidly 
down the path to the gate. The first turn shut the lights 
of the cottage from her view and she was alone in the 
soft, dark night. 

On all sides of her the air breathed perfume; power¬ 
fully sweet, the roses in the garden flung their fragrance 
abroad. It was like leaving a room heavy with incense 
to escape from it. 

A sky delicately powdered with stars arched overhead. 
A faint, vague whiteness over the tree tops preluded the 

151 


MANY WATERS 


rising moon. Already, although not yet visible over the 
thick clustered trees of the paddock, it was touching the 
highest gable of the stables with a patch of light. 

Marian glanced at it absently. There was a breath¬ 
lessness, a rapt preoccupation about her. She was think¬ 
ing, wondering how many other girls on this moon- 
white night were hurrying to meet their lovers. 

In the hedge as she passed a cricket sounded an in¬ 
sistent note over and over. It throbbed in her ears like 
some strange tom-tom summoning to mad adventure. She 
could hear it still, long after she had left the hedge where 
the cricket was hidden, behind—hear it still throbbing in 
her ears. A strange excitement trembled in her blood. 
And yet she was not in the least afraid. 

Down the long road towards the sea she sped. In the 
distance now, faintly gleaming, were the lights of the 
life-saving station and the cottages of the coast guards 
below. The road dipped again, shorewards, and she lost 
sight of them. A cloud slipped across the moon blurring 
for a moment its wild whiteness. The stars winked at 
her as she ran, hastening onwards. 

Past the fringe of Whitridge, lying ghostlike in the 
moonlight, on down towards the sea, she went, turning 
off from the road to the church. Her path was over a 
rough, sandy and deeply rutted road, lonely and desolate, 
but she knew the way between the tall dunes rising menac¬ 
ingly on either hand with the long stretch of the salt 
marshes ahead. She could have kept the road with¬ 
out difficulty even were the night not so white and 
lovely. 

She could smell the sea now, salt and sweet. She could 
see the dim outline of its horizon and hear its voice in¬ 
sistent on the shore. To her left, lizard grey in the dark¬ 
ness, rose the rocky headland which shut off the beach 
152 


MANY WATERS 

where she and Donald had ridden that glad summer day 
years ago. 

She had almost come to the trysting place now. A 
turn; and like a fairy bridge low across the sky, the 
twinkling lights of Tonomet dulled in the white glamour 
of the moon which hung high above the dunes, mistress 
of her world. 

Marian lifted her head and sniffed gladly the odour of 
the sea. She was in the sandy patch of road that dipped 
below the dunes and edged the salt marshes. She must go 
more slowly here or the sand would get inside her slip¬ 
pers. But her feet, eager to meet her lover, would scarcely 
let her pause in her swift flight. She was breathing a 
little faster from the exertion of walking in the sand. 

She left the road on the farther side of the marsh and 
struck out straight across the dunes. The long grass, 
high above her slippers, whipped her unprotected ankles. 
There were two of these gently rising hills of hard sand 
before she came to the high dune where he would be 
waiting for her. Waiting for her! Her heart leapt at 
the thought and she hurried onward, unheeding the tan¬ 
gled grasses that caught at her skirts like mute hands 
holding her back—onward till the trysting place was 
reached. 

At first she did not see him, although the light on the 
dunes was clear and bright. Then he rose and came to 
meet her. He had been sitting with his hands clasped 
about his knees, his back against a hummock of grass, 
gazing out silently at the murmurous moonlit sea. He 
rose and came to her and took her hand in his. 

“So you came! I had a horrible feeling you might 
not, after all. I’ve been torturing myself with the idea, 
sitting here waiting. It’s such a long way for you to 

153 


MANY WATERS 

come alone, in the dark. I really ought not to have asked 
you.” 

His voice was soft and caressing like the delicate night 
wind that played about her throat and lifted the strand 
of golden hair on her forehead. 

“I got through sooner than I expected in the village,” 
he continued, “so I was here early. I’ve been waiting 
a long time.” 

“I'm sorry,” was all she said. But she gazed at him 
silently. She looked all pale and fair and golden, like 
some nereid washed ashore with seaweed in her hair, as 
she stood there, silent, drenched in the moonlight, her 
lips slightly parted, her dark eyes glowing, and the long 
wave of her golden hair a misty cloud above her 
brow. 

Her vague loveliness hushed him suddenly; made him 
dumb, confused, almost humble. 

He stood staring at her; and they were silent for a 
time, gazing into each other’s eyes. Then he drew her 
to him. 

“Come over here. We’ll sit down and watch the sea.” 

He was very gentle. She walked beside him in mute 
obedience till they reached the hummock of grass. Don¬ 
ald dropped her hand, and threw himself down in the 
sand, but Marian remained standing, gazing out over 
the glistening waters where, beyond the lights of Tono- 
met, the moonlight made a white path over the edge of 
the world. 

Donald looked up at her from his couch in the sand. 

“What are you thinking of?” 

“I was thinking I ought not to have come,” she said 
slowly. 

“Why not?” He rolled over on his side. His assur¬ 
ance was coming back. When he didn’t look at her he 
154 


MANY WATERS 


was quite at ease. He knew that he “had a way with 
women.” Young as he was, he was well aware of that* 
not boastfully or consciously, no more than he was boast¬ 
fully or consciously aware that, through the chances of 
fortune, he could, did he desire it, buy in the markets this 
or that commodity denied by circumstances to many of 
his fellows. It was his heritage, a part of his birthright, 
of his place in the world. So was homage from women. 
It had only been the momentary challenge of her grey 
eyes that had given him that moment of pause, that in¬ 
stant’s consciousness of humility. He was not in the 
least resentful of the fact; he was only rather mildly 
surprised. 

But his ascendancy over the other sex was largely due 
to a natural desire to please. He endeavoured now to 
do so. 

“Why oughtn’t you to have come?” he asked her again. 
“You wanted to, didn’t you? And I wanted you. So- 
what possible harm can it do?” 

“I—I don’t know.” 

She could not take her eyes away from the white path 
of moonlight. It seemed as if they were moving up it, 
she and Donald, up the long path, on and on, clear over 
the earth’s edge. She came back to the present with a. 
little shiver of surprise to hear Donald saying: 

“Of course you don’t. There’s really no reason in the 
world why we shouldn’t come out on a night like this 
to see the moon on the water. It’s wonderful, isn’t 
it?” 

“Glorious!” Her hands were clasped on her breast. 
She stood facing the sea; and the fresh, cool wind blew 
inland over the water, bending the long dune grasses at 
her feet and whipping a strand of hair across her 
cheeks. 


155 


MANY WATERS 


Donald was still looking up at her. 

“Do you mean,” he said, “that you’re not going to sit 
down beside me?” 

“No,” she said slowly, “I think I’ll go back.” 

“Indeed you won’t!” He sprang to his feet. In the 
hush of the starshine they were close together. 

“Marian,” he said, almost sternly, “look at me!” 

She turned very slowly, and slowly raised her eyes to 
his. And suddenly he knew why he had felt that momen¬ 
tary humility and wonderment when he first saw her to¬ 
night. He knew that she loved him. 

He put out his hands and laid them on her shoulders, 
and as he did so he felt her whole body trembling. It 
filled him with a sense of mastery, delicious and quite 
satisfying. 

“Marian,” he said softly, “you won’t go back until I 
let you. You won’t go back because you love me. Con¬ 
fess it; you do!” 

Even in the pale moonlight he could see the waves of 
dark colour flood her cheeks and her lips tremble. And 
he wanted to be kind. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he said gently. “Look at me and 
tell me.” 

But she would not look at him. 

“But you don’t—’’ she began with downcast eyes. 

He finished the sentence for her readily—too readily. 

“Love you? Of course I do. You silly little thing, is 
that all that’s troubling you?” 

She looked up at him then, her grave eyes wide, un¬ 
smiling. “Yes,” she said softly, “I love you.” 

For any man, be he never so unemotional, there is but 
one thing to do in such a situation. Donald did it. He 
caught her to him and held her close. So they stood en- 


MANY WATERS 


laced, a black shadow in the moonlight. And like a heart 
beating in the darkness the sea was beating, beating, on 
the beach below them. 

He drew her down to a seat beside him in the soft 
sand. He lay at her feet and she smoothed the curls 
back from his brow. Below them the sea pounded at the 
beach. She kept her eyes fixed on the white moon path, 
and all the time she was trying to hold the minutes fast. 
She was thinking: “This is what I have lived for all 
these years; this is what Life means.” 

Donald caught her hand and pressed it between his lips 
and the cool, soft, yielding sand. 

“Oh, you darling!” he said, “you darling!” 

He looked up at her. In the cool radiance of the moon¬ 
light her face was very pale and strangely transfigured, 
and again there stirred in him that sensation of having 
looked at something mystical, so that the words he had 
been planning to say died in his throat. He was only 
aware of the soft white purity of her loveliness. That 
intangible mantle of innocence that he had noticed long 
ago was about her again, even with the light of love in 
her eyes, protecting, shielding her. Unconsciously he let 
the opportunity slip from him. Soft as the wind’s whis¬ 
per the moth-grey night glided by. Only the sea beat 
ever on the shore like a heart beating. 

“You don’t mind my kissing you like this?’’ he asked 
after a long silence. 

She shook her head. “No, not now—after to-night. 
And after what happened that night at your dance, I—I 
suppose it’s all right.” 

Donald was mystified. “What the deuce,” he thought, 
“is she speaking of?” Aloud he said: 

“What’s the use of thinking about anything but to¬ 
night?” 


157 


MANY WATERS 


She turned gravely startled eyes upon him. “But don’t 
you think it does make a difference? Why, I wouldn’t 
have come here at all to-night otherwise.” 

Donald sat up. “Doesn’t what make a difference ?’’ 

“What—what you did that night.” 

“But what did I do?” 

She drew away from him suddenly. He felt, rather 
than saw, the hurt surprise in her eyes. 

“Then you don’t even remember?” 

Donald thought furiously. In his emergency he reached 
for her hand again and she snatched it away. Her cheeks 
were blazing. All at once light broke in on him. He 
must have kissed her. He didn’t remember the occur¬ 
rence now, but that must have been it. He had kissed 
her as a kid and she had remembered and treasured it all 
these years! 

He leaned over and caught her hand. 

“I was only teasing you. Of course I remember. Did 
you think I could forget a thing like that? You came 
to-night because I had kissed you before. You knew it 
was all right because of that.” 

She yielded then to his embraces. They sat together, 
his arms about her shoulders, harkening to the swirling 
waters far down the beach and the soft lisping call of 
the sea wind, their eyes drinking in the mystic loveliness 
of the night, hands enlaced, silent, in the old, immemorial 
manner of lovers. Immersed in dear, delicious dreams 
and shadowy illusions they let the hours slip by, speaking 
little; the gossiping night wind heard only from time to 
time Marian’s low-murmured : “Donald! Donald!” and 
the sound of their young lips meeting in swift, impas¬ 
sioned kisses. Even the sea was silenced to a gentle mon¬ 
otone, that strange unearthly quiet that preceds the turn¬ 
ing of the tide. Nothing came to disturb their perfect 

158 


MANY WATERS 


ecstasy; only the night wind sighed a little among the 
dunes, and the white moonlight path upon the sea deep¬ 
ened and quivered with a vague unrest. 

When the lean waves were creeping stealthily higher 
and higher up the smooth white plain of the beach, Don¬ 
ald and Marion at last rose to go home. Together, hand 
in hand, past the long hunched backs of the dunes, through 
the soft, shuffling sand and along the edge of the salt 
marshes, leaving behind them the lights of Tonomet 
steadily gleaming, a fairy arch in the sky. 

They heard the wind sighing in the reeds, and the 
call of a waking bird somewhere in the darkness. A 
single light was burning in the life-saving station, but 
the cottagers’ lights had all been put out. 

At her own gate, in the darkness, Donald stooped and 
kissed her again. “Good night, and God bless you!’’ he 
whispered softly. She waved her hand to him; flitted 
from him like a white moth up the drive to the house. 

As she got into bed that night and nestled between the 
cool, sweet sheets a queer thought occurred to her, an 
odd thought to come to a girl supremely happy. What 
she thought was, “Whatever else life can do to me, I’ve 
had to-night. It can’t take away that; that’s mine forever 
and ever!” 

3 

Donald, when he reached home after leaving Marian 
at her gate, paused in the drive before the house to light 
a cigarette. He hadn’t thought of smoking before. Odd 
that he shouldn’t have felt the need for it. 

Still holding the cigarette between his lips, he entered 
the house, using his latchkey for the purpose; and turning 
to the right from the hall, he passed into the library 
where one softly shaded light still burned at the far end. 
159 


MANY WATERS 


Under this light, curled up in the corner of the sofa, Con¬ 
nie Leveredge was sitting, an open book on her lap. The 
rosy light from overhead shone down upon her dark, 
glossy hair, and cast a warm hue over her face and bare 
arms. She made a pretty picture in the shadowy room. 

Donald walked quietly up behind her and put a hand 
on her shoulder. 

“Out so late?” she said carelessly, without looking up. 

Subconsciously Donald felt slightly piqued at her in¬ 
difference. His pulses were still throbbing with the re¬ 
membrance of Marian’s kisses. And Connie looked so 
cool and crisp and unruffled there under the rosy light; 
the curve of her neck so smooth and white, with the hair 
above it so immaculately arranged. Her obviously com¬ 
plete perfection somehow teased and annoyed him. He 
felt that he wanted amazingly to see her dishevelled, as 
if he would like to rumple her with his hands. 

“Where’s mother?” he asked inconsequentially. 

“Gone to bed.” Connie snapped the book shut sud¬ 
denly. “And your father, too. It’s very late, young 
man; you don’t seem to realise that.” 

She had turned now, although she had not put her 
feet down on the floor yet. She crouched there in her 
corner of the sofa and looked up at him, a provocative 
questioning in her eyes. 

Donald felt his pulses leap again; and the sea wind 
from the dunes was still singing in his ears. His mood 
was one of daring. Connie was no pale ghost girl waver¬ 
ing under the unsteady light of a misty moon; Connie 
was real flesh and blood, maddeningly vital. Besides, she 
was well able to take care of herself. Why not give rein 
to that wild impulse to seize hold of her. . . . 

On a sudden he reached forward and caught hold of 
her, dragging her to her feet and along the sofa towards 
160 


MANY WATERS 


him. Connie, startled, tried to pull away, but he held 
her fast; his hands gripping her shoulders, forced her 
arms against her body, hurting her. An angry flush 
mounted to her forehead. She cried out: 

“Donald, don’t! You’re hurting me!” 

But the sea wind seemed to have made him doubly 
strong. He held her fast, although he loosened his grip 
a little; and he pressed his lips to hers. 

“Donald, you’re a brute!” She wrenched herself free 
at last; standing back from him, nursing her wrists and 
smoothing a lock of hair which had become disarranged. 

“I don’t see what right you have to act like that,” she 
said petulantly. 

“Then why did you look at me as you did?” 

“How do you mean? You spoke to me; I suppose I 
had to look at you to answer!’* 

“You didn’t have to look like that.” 

“Bother!” The ghost of a little smile crept into Con¬ 
nie’s eyes. “What makes you think I cared about look¬ 
ing at you at all?” 

Donald laughed. He guessed that Connie was over 
her “mad.” 

“You shouldn’t look so temptingly delicious and at the 
same time so immaculately proper. It’s too much for a 
man’s self-restraint. I wasn’t responsible.’* 

She was standing away from the immediate aureate 
glow of the light now. In the cool shadow of the vast 
room her face had lost its rosy glint. But the light struck 
upon her bosom, still heaving from her recent indignation. 
She was very charming, small and lithe and graceful, 
rather like a soft silky cat. Something feline in her make¬ 
up showed momentarily and checked the mad impulse 
born an instant ago in his mind. Perhaps Connie saw it. 

“Why did you want to do it?” she asked again. 

161 


MANY WATERS 


But Donald’s wild mood had left him. 

“Oh, nothing,” he said carelessly as he turned away. 

Connie bit her lip; and as Donald, with an idle “good 
night,” left her at the foot of the stairs, he did not see 
that she had the nails of her fingers pressed tightly into 
the palms of her hands. 


CHAPTER X 


i 

I T WAS something of a shock to Marian to learn 
several days later that Donald had gone away again 
and probably would not return to Whitridge before 
going back to college in the fall. She had not seen him 
in the meantime, not since that last whispered “good 
night, and God bless you!” at the gate in the pale star¬ 
light. To leave after that for several months at least 
without even the formality of saying good-bye seemed 
unkind, more than that, cruel. Marian was at a loss to 
understand it. It had seemed so certain that she must 
see him in a day or so. She had wanted to see him, de¬ 
sired it incredibly, and at the same time she wanted not 
to see him—at least, not just yet. A timid dread of meet¬ 
ing him had kept her in the whole day following that eve¬ 
ning on the dunes. She had wanted for a time to rest, 
as it were, upon her happiness, as a swimmer will pause 
to float for a moment on the waves, that he may the 
better enjoy the new, strong joy of swift, keen motion 
to come. No doubts assailed her. All her youth she 
had dreamed that some time this thing would come to her. 
The colour of romance such as this had tinged all her 
youthful fancies. And now it was come, just as she had 
dreamed of it, only more wonderful! more beautiful! 
She was content to take the future slowly. 

But now that he was gone so suddenly, so unexpectedly, 
she reproached herself. Why had she dreaded so to meet 

163 


MANY WATERS 


him? Why had she indulged in such absurd shyness? 
Why let such timid fancies take hold upon her? It was 
as if she had said: “Slowly, come slowly; it is more than 
my heart can bear all at once.” That idea had seemed rea¬ 
sonable at the time; but looking back she felt that perhaps 
by that very diffidence she had missed seeing him. Per¬ 
haps he had looked for her. No doubt he, too, felt shy, 
and hadn’t wanted to come to the house. She should have 
gone at least halfway to meet him. It was her own fault, 
she told herself severely. 

And yet she couldn’t help feeling that he should, in any 
case, have come to her, have sent her some word. To 
learn as she did, through a chance call on Mrs. Wetherell, 
that he had gone away on a visit, first at Connie Lever- 
edge’s and then for other visits, and that so soon as the 
Thursday following their evening on the dunes, was a 
bitter disappointment. 

But her faith was strong. Nothing could daunt her 
trust in Donald or shake her conviction that the course 
of their love would run smoothly. And she had the 
memory of that night on the dunes to stay and comfort 
her. And then a little less than a week after he had 
gone came his letter. It was rather short: 

“Dear Marian [it ran] Well, I’m back here at Singley 
Park with the Leveredges and it’s most frightfully dull. 
Nothing at all to do but ride about in a stupid motor car 
and call on the neighbours. Then you go home and wait 
for them to call on you. I’m going from here to visit 
Jack Tenniel. We expect to have a great time. He has 
a boat, something rather nifty from the description he’s 
given me. I wish you were going to be there, too. We 
could have no end of a good time. I don’t know whether 
Connie’s going or not. Tenniel wants her to come but 
164 


MANY WATERS 


she thinks maybe she won’t—I don’t know why. It’s 
great sport sailing, don’t you think ? Or haven’t you done 
any? We’ll have a great time some day, you and I. For 
if I like Tenniel’s boat I mean to have one, too. Don’t 
know where I’d keep it, though. Well, never mind about 
that now. I must stop. I was awfully sorry not to see 
you again before I left. Don’t think I’ve forgotten you! 
I haven’t. Connie sends her love—or at least she would 
if she knew I was writing to you. I’ll see you before 
very long. So good-bye. 

“Donald.” 

That was the letter. There was no hint of love-making 
in it; not even any word to distinguish it from the epistle 
of the most commonplace of friends; yet to Marian it 
breathed a passion more intoxicating, a romance more 
exquisite, than any vows of deathless love writ in fire 
and blood! 

She read the brief note over time after time, scanning 
each line and letter, each scrawling flourish of the address, 
the postmark even, and the stamp, until she could close 
her eyes and still see it plain before her. No other letter 
that she could ever receive in all her life after would 
affect her quite as that dull, schoolboyish, hastily written 
note of Donald’s did. She carried it about with her and 
read it at odd moments, at night in the curtained recesses 
of her bedroom, in the crisp pale dawns as soon as the 
thin grey light permitted; or, Nance saddled and bridled 
and the solitary miles between her and the house, draw¬ 
ing it from within her blouse to reread it, hungrily, joy¬ 
fully. 

And Nance, walking slowly, would guide them both 
along the narrow roads and over the trackless wastes of 
firm white sand, between the dunes where the coarse, 


MANY WATERS 


tangled grasses grew, along all the roads which she and 
Donald had travelled together. 

Marian lived in a world of rapt, ecstatic dreams at this 
time. She could almost regret that they had come so 
far along the road of emotional experience. It lay all 
before her, rosy with the first dawning mists of romance, 
sweet with the dewy fragrance of undoubting faith, glo¬ 
rious with the unfamiliar joy of possession. She no more 
doubted Donald than she would have doubted herself. It 
did not even occur to her to criticise his letter. 

She did not answer it at once. Instead she let several 
days, almost a week, go by. She wanted to wait that 
long because the pleasure of composing a reply would be 
so great. All sorts of clever things came rushing into 
her mind whenever she thought of it. But in the end the 
letter which she sent was very simple. No slightest 
mention in it of the ardent love which burned in her 
breast like a pure flame. Only she kissed the letter before 
she sealed it because his hands would touch it. 

After that first exchange of correspondence there were 
numerous letters; but while she loved them and looked 
forward with a joyful eagerness to their coming, there 
was none of them quite like that first one to her. It re¬ 
mained, crumpled and worn with many readings, the 
prize jewel of her possession. 

One day she had ridden out towards Tonomet, mean¬ 
ing to take the sea road back past the life-saving station 
and the church, but in the lane just beyond Mr. Horner’s 
house she came face to face with a motor containing 
Mrs. Callender and, beside her, Connie Leveredge. 

Nance was well used to motors, there was no reason 
why she should have noticed it at all; but either through 
the suddenness of its approach, or because of the narrow 
road, she took it into her head to feign fright, and danced 
166 


MANY WATERS 


excitedly. The chauffeur considerately stopped the car; 
Marian, smiling, brought the mare under control and 
endeavoured to walk her past the waiting motor, when 
Connie, with a hurried direction to the man to delay 
starting, leaned out and addressed the girl on horseback. 

Connie was wearing a soft, clinging dress of some 
silky grey material, and a small grey hat with a long 
drooping plume. It was an inappropriate but extremely 
becoming costume. She looked like some charming, old- 
fashioned portrait. Her colour was high and her dark 
eyes danced. Her smile was very pleasant. 

“How are you?” she called. ‘Tm visiting Aunt Clara 
for a bit while the men are away. Donald's coming 
home next week. Did you know it? I wish you’d come 
up to see me. How about to-morrow? Can’t you run 
up then? Aunt Clara’s going in to Thornton to a party 
and I shall be all alone. Do come.” 

Marian felt a slight twinge of embarrassment at Con¬ 
nie’s effusiveness. Mrs. Callender, meanwhile, sat by 
with an air of icy indifference. Marian felt a suble dis¬ 
like for her. She knew now that she had always felt it, 
only she had not realised it until to-day. 

But Connie had said specially that she would not have 
to see the mistress of the Hall if she came on the mor¬ 
row. She hesitated an instant and then told Connie she 
would come. 


2 

On the morrow, however, she felt unreasonably averse 
to going; a return of that shyness which she had con¬ 
stantly to combat, and a shrinking from Connie’s bright, 
inquisitive eyes overpowered her. Connie had asked so 
many questions once before. True, she had been much 
younger then; but who could tell but that she might be 

167 


MANY WATERS 


even more interested now? What if Connie asked her 
about Donald and herself ? Marian could not countenance 
the idea. 

Providentially in the morning Elaine came down to 
breakfast complaining of a splitting headache. It grew 
worse as the day advanced so that she asked Marian to 
take charge of a pupil that afternoon in her place. Glad 
of the excuse for not going up to the Hall, Marian wrote 
Connie a brief note explaining the circumstances and sent 
it up by Ted around noontime. Connie shrugged her 
shoulders when she received it, but made no remark. 

Marian rode out with her pupil and they went in quite 
a different direction from the Hall; but during the whole 
ride Marian’s thoughts were there. She was wondering 
whether Connie had been right when she said that Don¬ 
ald would be home next week. Ah, wonderful, if only 
it were true! But he had made no mention of it in his 
letters to herself. But Connie ought to know. Hope 
began to bloom again in her heart like a delectable flower. 

3 

Mark came home a few days later and at once made 
his way to the cottage. Marian was unfeignedly glad to 
see him, although she could not suppress the unfriendly 
little thought of how much gladder she would have been 
had it been Donald. 

He suggested a walk; Marian was glad of the exer¬ 
cise, and they started out down the main road to Thorn¬ 
ton. It had been raining hard for two days and this 
was the only one fit to walk on at present. Everything 
was still wet and dripping, but the thick curtain of grey 
clouds had broken at last. In the direction of the sea a 
wide band of pale, greenish-yellow light hung motion¬ 
less. Low overhead thin wispy masses of vapour, like 

168 


MANY WATERS 

blown smoke, floated rapidly along, borne on invisible 
breezes, transparent against the background of iron-grey. 
The long black macadam of the road stretched ahead of 
them, with here and there purple pools, dull, with only 
the faintest glimmer of reflected light from the dun sky 
overhead. 

But in the fresh wind everything was clearing rapidly. 
Mark was in high spirits. They strode along side by 
side, Marian matching her steps to his. She had an 
easy carriage and a long, graceful stride, rather unusual 
in a woman. Mark was proud of her, and she of him. 
When a passing motor forced them to the side of the 
road, back from the puddles, making it necessary to go 
single file, she looked at him walking ahead, and vaguely 
admired the square set of his shoulders and the way he 
held his head, courageously. 

They walked almost to Thornton, as far as the well- 
laid-out squares and streets of what was to have been an 
important suburb of the town. But Thornton had not 
grown as the promoters of the scheme expected, or, if it 
had, had advanced in another direction. The admirably 
planned streets had been allowed gradually to revert to 
their original state; grass grew in the roads and the 
pavements here and there were quite grown over. Their 
outlines were still visible, with now and then a dilapidated 
signboard bearing an unfamiliar street name, and a brave 
array of bent and twisted street lamps. In remote spots, 
like islands in the surrounding sea of desolation, stood* 
here and there, houses, tall, angular, unattractive, bought 
by some too credulous investor years ago and slowly de¬ 
teriorating. 

Marian and Mark stood still upon a deserted street 
corner and silently regarded this scene. In the slanting 
rays of the late afternoon sun which by now had broken 

169 


MANY WATERS 


through the dingy grey clouds, a certain mood of rather 
wistful romance animated the flat expanse before them. 
The watery sunlight gleamed wanly from the house roofs; 
the bleak lines of half-formed streets cutting one an¬ 
other at regular angles took on a sudden misty loveli¬ 
ness—something that had to do with youth and young 
love and brave endeavour, with youth's extravagant hopes 
and ambitions, the ineffable sweet pathos of joys and 
sorrows shared in common when two young things play 
at life together as children play “house” with their dolls. 

Mark was the first to speak, and something of this 
reading of the scene must have crept into his conscious¬ 
ness. 

“Up nearer the town it isn’t so bad,” he said. “In fact, 
there are some quite nice little houses. They sell them 
out on monthly payments, the lots, I mean, quite cheap. 
It wouldn’t take a great deal to put up a house, one of 
those new little cottages. In fact, it wouldn’t be so bad 
out here once they got started. All they need is for a few 
more people to build. They’re rather like sheep, you 
know, people are. If you could only once get them started, 
I think they'd come fast enough, even way out here.” 

“I rather like its loneliness,” Marian replied. “I hate 
houses crowded together.” 

“Do you?” Mark’s tone was eager. “So do I. Do 
you know, I’ve been thinking of trying to get something 
to do in Thornton. It was to be the law if I could spare 
the time. Judge Phillips will take me in his office if I 
choose, but I don’t know. If I could get something else, 
quicker— Marian, if you would, we might get married 
and build a little house, all for ourselves in some inexpen¬ 
sive part—not here, perhaps, that’s too desolate—but 
somewhere—” He broke off at Marian’s little gesture of 
pain and regret. 


MANY WATERS 


“Oh, Mark! Please! I thought we weren’t to speak 
of that again. I thought it was understood. . . .” 

“We haven’t for a long time now.” 

“I know; and I was so glad. I thought you had for¬ 
gotten; that you’d got over caring for me—that way.’’ 

He smiled ever so ruefully. “Got over it! You speak 
as if love were the measles! No, dear, I haven’t got over 
it—not at all; and I never shall, even though we both 
live to be a hundred and eighty. I shall always think 
of you and love you just as I do now.” 

“But, Mark, you mustn’t. You must stop loving me, 
then.” 

“I can’t stop, dear. You’ve bewitched me. Long ago, 
before ever the world began, you cast an evil spell over 
me. I’m the poor enchanted fool following the will-o’- 
the-wisp! I’ve listened to the fairies singing; and it’s a 
well-known fact that those who once do that have lost 
their souls forever—they’re never able to come back, 
never are normal again! That’s history.’’ 

His words were playful, but for all their bantering 
quaintness his smile was sad. 

She smiled, too, but gravely, regretfully. 

“If only you’d be sensible about it. If only you’d try 
to overcome it!” 

“Ah, but I can’t! The mischief’s done—always was 
done. You can’t undo it. But then, you know, they 
never really regret it, those who have heard the fairies 
singing.” 

“It is I who regret.” 

“Why do that? Oh, Marian dear, be a little gener¬ 
ous ! Marian, it isn’t only for to-day that I want you. 
Don’t you see, when you refuse me, it’s as if you took all 
my past away from me as well—all the old happy visions? 
I’ve always thought of you, always loved you just as I 

1 7 I 


MANY WATERS 


do now. Somehow, in spite of everything, I’ve always 
felt you would be my wife. Even when we were still 
children I know I had some such conviction—” 

“But we aren’t children any more, Mark.” Her eyes 
were very grave and serious. “If you’d only remember 
that you’d find it easy to forget.” 

“No, I won’t, Marian. I’ll look up in dying and see 
your face—I know I shall! You think that’s sentimental 
and foolish, don’t you? If you weren’t so kind-hearted 
I believe you’d laugh at me!” 

“No, no, Mark!” 

“All the same, it’s the way I feel.” 

“Mark dear, please—!” 

She raised her clear grey eyes to his and he saw that 
she was genuinely distressed. 

“I won’t bother you any more,” he said smiling, “but 
I can’t help hoping that some day you’ll feel differently. 
I can’t risk letting my chances of happiness go by without 
at any rate trying. As long as there isn’t any one else; 
there isn’t, is there, Marian?’’ 

She coloured furiously so that he said hastily: “No, 
never mind answering that; I don’t want to know if there 
is. We won’t talk about it any more, now, although I 
think it’s only fair to tell you I shan’t ever give up hope.” 

With a smile half sad, half tender, she turned and he 
followed her. The afternoon was far advanced as they 
turned their faces in the direction of Whitridge. The 
misty day had sunk into a grey twilight by the time they 
were approaching the Callender hill, which, from this side, 
rose steeply like a giant ant heap with the side crumbled 
off. Mark called Marian’s attention to a small column of 
smoke rising steadily from behind the trees on the crest 
of the hill. 

“Look, Marian, at that smoke. It looks like a fire.” 
1 72 


MANY WATERS 


“Perhaps it is. That’s down towards the stables. You 
don’t supose it is the stables ?” she added after a moment. 

The nearer they approached, the higher rose that indefi¬ 
nite column of smoke. The two on the road watched it 
anxiously. By the time they were within a quarter mile 
of the lower gate there could be no doubt about it; the 
fire was in the stables. Mark turned to the girl. 

“It’s the stables and the place is pretty far out for the 
Whitridge fire horses to come. They’ll need help. Let’s 
hurry.” 

They raced along the intervening distance. Marian 
felt her heart beating tumultuously. Donald’s house and 
Donald’s horses in danger! She felt a wild thrill of hor¬ 
ror at the thought, and a new strange excitement, not un¬ 
pleasant. Even in the midst of it, it frightened her, that 
feeling. It couldn’t be that she was glad such a thing 
could happen. 

“Come on, hurry up!” Mark stretched out a hand to 
her as he spoke. 

They had reached the lower gate now and were soon 
pushing up the drive. By now they could see an occa¬ 
sional tongue of flame shoot up through the thick belch¬ 
ing clouds of smoke, lost again in an instant, only to leap 
up elsewhere a moment later. There could be no doubt 
about it now, the stables, the much reverred Callender 
stables, were on fire. 

The driveway up to the house from the Thornton Road 
was much steeper than the one from the Whitridge side. 
It wound in a series of sharp curves up to, and past, the 
barns, so that, as they advanced, they lost sight of the 
smoke clouds. The wind was in the opposite direction; 
as yet they could not smell the fire; but in the drive, as 
they mounted, they came upon groups of people, all like¬ 
wise hurrying to the scene. 

173 


MANY WATERS 


Marian and Mark were both out of breath and panting 
when they finally came within sight of the burning build¬ 
ings and the crowd of people surrounding them as close 
as the danger permitted. They could see the destruction 
going on, now that they were beyond the intervening bar¬ 
rier of trees. “Oh, Mark!” the girl exclaimed in horror 
as they drew near. 

The long, rambling structure of the stables was appar¬ 
ently a mass of flames. Sparks, like flocks of birds, flew 
upward with a strange hissing sound. The heavy white 
and yellow smoke, ever increasing in volume, poured out 
of every door and aperture. Before this scene the crowd, 
which was being constantly augmented from the other 
side of the hill, swayed and muttered. 

Most of the people were from Whitridge; Marian rec¬ 
ognised them here and there—old Jerrold from the hotel, 
and Mrs. Jerrold, perspiring and panting painfully; Mr. 
Horner’s daughter and her husband; Smith from the 
general store; and Pennyman, the druggist. An air of 
suppressed excitement and obscure enjoyment animated 
these people, too. Marian felt it as soon as she was 
among them. Murmurs of conversation reached her: 

“They’re doomed! . . . There’s no hope for them now 
. . . What a shame! . . . Isn’t it now ?” 

“Yes, they’re doomed.” The first man repeated his 
verdict in a tone of equivocal regret. It was as if the 
words gave him a peculiar pleasure to repeat. 

“What are?” Mark, also, had heard the speaker and 
turned quickly. “Do you mean the barns?” 

“No, sir! The horses, that’s what I mean. They’re 
all in there yet. Not a one of them’s been got out.” There 
was an unholy relish in the way he said the words. His 
neighbour spat reflectively. 

“Good bit of horseflesh gone.” 

174 


MANY WATERS 


The other nodded. They were not unsympathetic men 
but they enjoyed the excitement. 

“But haven’t they tried to get them out?” Mark de¬ 
manded. 

“Oh, yes, I dessay. ,? He looked at Marian standing, 
pale as a statue, behind Mark’s shoulder. “But it’s always 
touch and go with horses trapped like that. They don’t 
often manage to get ’em out. Not once the fire’s got 
ahead like this one has. If it hadn’t abeen a wet day them 
barns’d gone like so much tinder. Only reason they’ve 
lasted this long is because the roofs were thoroughly 
soaked. The fire department’s no good. Give us a light, 
Jim,” he added to his companion, “my pipe’s gone 
out.” 

“Plenty of light about,” said the other, indicating, with 
a jerk of his thumb, the blazing buildings ; and they both 
laughed. 

“Mark, come away.” Marian put her hand on his 
arm. She was very white. 

“Yes. We’ll go around to the other side. They may 
be doing something more around there.” 

They skirted the edge of the crowd and made their 
way to the far side of the buildings. Here the crowd was 
equally dense, but the smoke, driven that way by the 
wind, kept them at a greater distance from the flames, and 
made it difficult to see what was going on. 

The Whitridge fire department, glorying in the knowl¬ 
edge that chances to distinguish itself like this came but 
seldom, was fussing about, shouting, ordering and coun¬ 
termanding orders, dragging up pieces of hose which ap¬ 
parently no one had the authority or the wit to connect; 
in fact, behaving in a thoroughly inefficient manner, a 
situation which is apt to happen in small, rural communi¬ 
ties where fires are infrequent and responsibility unsettled. 

175 


MANY WATERS 


It was years since there had been a conflagration on this 
scale in the village. 

“They say the Thornton fire apparatus has been or¬ 
dered out,” Marian heard one woman remark. “Good 
work, too. These here men are all off their heads. Look 
at Jimmy Gallagher there; don’t know whether he’s com¬ 
ing or going.” 

One of the firemen, with an assumption of authority, 
came forward and urged the crowd back. He was wear¬ 
ing an old pair of overalls and a large helmet. 

“Now then, now then, move back, can’t ye? How can 
us men do anything if youse all keep butting in? Back, 
I say, keep back of this here line. Make room for the 
hose. Now then, this way, boys.” 

It was Tom Gallagher, Jimmy’s brother. Mark called 
to him eagerly: 

“Tom ! Tom Gallagher! Is it true that there are horses 
in there ?’’ 

The fireman strolled across to them, wiping his mouth 
on the back of his hand. 

“Oh, how do, Mr. Wetherell? You askin’ about them 
horses? Well, now that I can’t say. Maybe they’ve got 
’em out and maybe not. They might have got one or two 
out before the blaze reached this far. It started over 
there in the garradge— Oh, yes, they run out the car all 
right before it got regular started—” This in answer to 
a hasty enquiry from another quarter. He turned back 
to Mark. “But horses, you know, they’re different. They 
say that horses have been known to let themselves be led 
right out o’ a burnin’ building, and then, when they was 
safe out, what do they do but turn around and run right 
back again. They stick to their stalls no matter what 
happens. Horses ain’t got no sense. Now I knew a 
fella once—” 


176 


MANY WATERS 


He had put his foot up on a stump preparatory to a 
long harangue; but once again Marian pulled at Mark’s 
sleeve. 

“Come away. Let’s see if we can’t get nearer over 
there by those trees. The men seem to be working there. 
Perhaps they can tell us something.” 

They left Tom Gallagher to tell his story to other 
listeners. In the place which they now sought out, the 
fire had been raging its fiercest. Hay was stored in this 
one of the barns, and already the flames had licked up 
beyond the roof of the building. The interior was gutted 
beyond hope of recovery. The barn was an old one, built 
of stout timbers in the days when barns were meant to 
hold supplies for many a long winter day. For years be¬ 
fore the new Callender house was built it had stood there 
proudly resisting the assaults of time, but now its day was 
over. Roof and side wall had fallen in, the stark timbers 
rose gauntly, the heavy crosspiece that had held the gable 
outlined like a crucifix against the angry red of the 
sky. 

As they stood watching in awed silence, a cry, inhuman 
and startling, rent the air, a wild cry of fear from one of 
the trapped horses. Mark saw the girl at his side shudder 
silently. Her face in the oscillating light of the leaping 
flames was blanched and drawn. 

“Oh, Mark, do something! Can’t you do something?” 
The cry seemed to be wrenched from her. 

“I’m afraid it’s useless, Marian. But I’ll see if I can’t 
get nearer. Stay here; promise me you won’t go any 
nearer and I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Yes, yes.” She nodded. “Mark, you know Donald’s 
Prince is in there.” 

“I know.” 

He plunged ahead through the clump of trees shrivel- 
177 


MANY WATERS 


ling in the rain of sparks from above, and she lost sight of 
him in the new, swirling clouds of smoke that drove sud¬ 
denly towards them. 

She tried to pierce the obscurity beyond; but Mark 
seemed to have disappeared utterly. She could feel the 
intense heat of the flames on her face now; and the people 
around her were falling back. A sudden doubt assailed 
her; had she driven Mark into reckless danger? After 
all, Prince was only a horse and Mark was Mark. Sup¬ 
pose anything happened to him? Then she recollected 
that she would have gone herself if he would have let her. 

Nevertheless, her anxiety was great. She strained her 
eyes forward. She was standing almost alone now. 

Suddenly from a group a little to her left there rose 
a faint cheer. She turned enquiringly and saw a man 
dash through the crowd and rush towards the blazing 
barns, a man who threw aside his hat and -tore off his 
overcoat as he ran. She felt her heart beat wildly. In 
the momentary glimpse she had of him she was able to 
recognise him—Donald Callander! 

A moment later she heard his voice clear above the 
noise and confusion: “Good God! haven’t they got 
my Prince out yet? Damn them!” And then Colonel 
Callender calling wildly: 

“Donald, Donald! come out of that! I say, Donald!” 

There was a crash as another part of the roof fell in. 
Thick, sullen clouds of black smoke issued, shutting out 
all vision; but in the general darkness excited voices rose 
all around her. 

“Who’s that?” . . . “What’s he done?” . . . “Is it 
the Thornton Hose Company?” . . . “No, no, young 
Callender . . . gone in after his own horse ... no 
chance at all . . . absolutely impossible . . . foolhardy 
. . . always was headstrong . . . got the guts, though 
i 7 8 


MANY WATERS 


... no good, can’t get ’em out, anyway . . . plenty of 
money to buy another . . . never get horses out in a fire” 
. . . and so forth. 

Marian lived hours in the pause that followed. But 
when the smoke lifted, thrown back by the west wind, 
another murmur rustled through the crowd like wind 
through the corn. 

“By George, he’s done it! Hanged if he hasn’t. Good 
work, boy!” A feeble cheer fluttered from a dozen 
throats. 

Donald had reappeared leading a snorting, quivering 
horse with a blanket thrown over his head. Donald’s face 
and hands were entirely untouched and his clothing un¬ 
scorched ; there was not a scratch on him, and he was smil¬ 
ing. For a moment, across the lighted arena, Marian 
caught a fleeting glimpse of Connie, very white and mo¬ 
tionless. Then Donald saw Marian. A groom led away 
the rescued horse and he crossed at once to her! 

“Hello, Marian, you here, too? Well, we got one of 
them out, anyway. Nice informal reception they’re hav¬ 
ing to greet me home!” His voice was nervous, excited. 
“I was driving up from the station when I saw the blaze 
and thought, 4 Somebody’s jolly old barn is burning.’ 
When we get near enough to see whose it was, maybe we 
didn’t hustle! I say, what are they cheering for?” 

“For you. Oh, Donald, that was so wonderful and so 
foolish of you to rush in like that!” 

He stood looking at her. Her face was raised to his; 
all her love and admiration and hero worship was in her 
eyes. Donald stared, hesitated a moment, glanced over 
his shoulder; then he laughed. He saw Mark approach¬ 
ing; there was only a moment then. They were standing 
somewhat apart from the crowd, secluded behind the clump 
of trees. He gazed down into Marian’s eyes. He saw her 

179 


MANY WATERS 


lips tremble; it seemed a shame not to go on. She really 
was mad about him, the poor little girl! 

“Oh, that wasn’t anything,” he said. “I knew if I 
could once get in there that Prince would follow me out 
all right. It was easy.” 

It was easy, too, to put his hand on hers in the soft 
shadow of the trees. He felt the warm, trusting clasp of 
her fingers. They were both, perhaps, still feeling the 
nervous tension that the excitement of the scene had pro¬ 
duced. As Donald looked at her, in a wave the passionate 
memory of that night on the shore came back to him. 
Perhaps, after all, he did actually love her. Who knows? 
Queerer things than that sometimes happened. For a 
moment the idea intrigued him. 

So engrossed were they that neither of them noticed 
that Mark had joined them until the Thornton fire chief 
came forward with outstretched hand. 

“That was a wonderful piece of work, Mr. Callender, 
wonderful! One of the finest rescues I ever saw. I 
want to congratulate you.” 

“Thanks,” said Donald carelessly. Others came up; 
crowded about; they looked at Donald with awe. He took 
his honours easily; but it seemed that he avoided Mark’s 
gaze. 

Marian became suddenly aware that Mark’s clothing 
was scorched and that he had wrapped one of his hands 
in his handkerchief. 

“Mark! you’re hurt!” 

He shook his head. “It’s nothing.” But he would not 
take the bandage from his hand. 

The fire chief laughed. “Got too near, did you? 
That’s a bad thing to do. Curiosity once killed a cat, 
you know.” 

Mark flushed and Donald spoke hurriedly : 

180 


MANY WATERS 


‘‘Come up to the house. We’ll celebrate a bit.” But 
Marian shook her head. The fire, practically burnt out 
by now, had been got under control. They would go 
home; it was late. 

As they went down the hill towards the cottage, hurry¬ 
ing because the daylight was now quite gone, Mark said 
no word to the girl at his side either of the rescue or of 
that other thing he had seen there in the shadows back of 
the burning barn. He had made a discovery and the spirit 
of self-sacrifice was upon him. Marian must never know 
the truth of that affair to-night. Even that red-hot in¬ 
ferno into which he had plunged to lead Donald’s horse 
to the comparative safety of the outer barn could not 
extort the truth from him now. For, in an instant’s space, 
just between pulse and pulse, he had learned Marian’s 
secret. It was easy, glimpsing that look of adoring won¬ 
der as she lifted her face to Donald’s. Like a sudden blow 
over the heart had come that moment’s insight. 

Yet he said no word of his discovery. There was noth¬ 
ing in his manner to indicate how, in one swift flash, all 
the old dreams and hopes of his youth had been swept 
away. They talked quietly of indifferent things. A west¬ 
ering moon, a slender sickle, gleamed pale between two 
clouds. The night was soft and balmy; and there was 
nothing to tell her in Mark’s casual good-bye at the cot¬ 
tage gate that here was more than a commonplace fare¬ 
well. 


CHAPTER XI 


i 

M ARK was alone at the rectory when Donald 
sought him out on the following day. Donald 
came on foot, a walking stick in his hand; he was 
dressed in light sport clothes with knickerbockers and golf 
stockings, and looked particularly handsome. He brought 
with him an air of careless ease and well-being which 
Mark, for all his heavy heart, could not but find re¬ 
freshing. 

Mark himself was looking ill and worn. His hand, 
which was bandaged and swollen, pained him a good deal. 
A litter of suit-cases and travelling bags, open and half 
packed, lay all about him, giving to the room a transitory, 
uncertain look. 

Donald glanced about him in some surprise. 

“You’re going back again?” 

“Yes, to-day.” 

“Not staying over the week-end?” 

“No, I couldn’t get a longer vacation.” 

“What a pity!” 

Donald dropped into an easy chair and swung one 
knee lightly over the other. In spite of a faint self-con¬ 
sciousness in his manner, that indescribable charm which 
was so characteristic of his lighter moments was unflawed. 
Mark, as he seated himself opposite, felt for a fleeting in¬ 
stant a recrudescence of that old admiring awe of him 
182 


MANY WATERS 

that he used to feel, a kind of innocent hero worship. He 
wondered dispassionately if he would ever entirely out¬ 
grow this feeling for Donald, or was it part of his nature, 
the heritage of his youth ? 

He was not now blind to Donald’s faults as he had 
been then, but the old loyalty and admiration were there 
still, had ripened into that deep, unalterable affection which 
men sometimes feel for other men, careless whether or 
not it is returned. Yet to-day, as he looked at his guest 
sitting back in his chair, knees crossed negligently, a care¬ 
less grace in every line of his body, there came to Mark, 
almost unwillingly, a touch of that old loving envy he had 
felt in his boyhood. It seemed to him now, as it had 
then, that Donald possessed everything he himself lacked— 
money, looks, poise, charm. The sudden recollection of 
how bewilderingly these qualities in Donald used to over¬ 
whelm him in those long-ago days flicked him again with 
a touch of pain, a moment’s bitterness. 

He put it from him, however, and listened to Donald’s 
light-running chatter. Donald was making time; he 
seemed to have some difficulty in approaching his subject, 
and Mark felt, somehow, that he could do nothing to help 
him. He had not slept and his mind was confused. 
There had been moments last night when he had fancied 
he hated Donald, but this disloyalty he knew could not 
last. Phrases kept running through his mind; “Greater 
love than this hath no man known—” Was that what he 
felt towards Donald ? Oh, what folly to put it that way! 
It was not he who had chosen—given anything up! 

It was only the natural result. Donald had always had 
what he wanted; it was almost an inherent right with him. 
Why should he not face it? Why keep recalling last 
night’s deception; assuring himself that he, at least, had 
always played fair? For shame! the thing was of so little 

183 


MANY WATERS 


consequence; would make so little difference in the long 
run. Last night, perhaps, he might have felt annoyed; 
to-day it was less than nothing. Only he would go away; 
he would go away and not come baek until he could control 
himself. 

Donald broke off what he was saying with a little incon¬ 
sequent laugh. He leaned forward. “Mark, I’m wonder¬ 
ing just what you’re thinking of me,” he remarked sud¬ 
denly. 

Mark parried the question. “It’s of no consequence.” 

Donald smiled. He did not seem so much embarrassed 
as amused. “I suppose it’s in rotten taste, my coming to 
you to-day, but—well, you see I couldn’t have this thing 
between us.” 

“It isn’t between us,” said Mark. 

Donald was looking down, drawing intricate designs on 
the carpet with the point of his stick. “What are you 
going to do about it?” he asked after a pause. 

“Do? Why nothing. Why should I do anything?” 

“Good old Mark!” Donald looked up, and there was 
a gleam of admiration in his eye. It was evident he was 
relieved. “You’re a good sport, Mark! I had an idea 
you would be. Naturally you couldn’t be anything else. 
And yet I don’t know that I deserve it. That was a damn¬ 
able thing I did.” He hesitated. “I don’t know what 
made me do it.” And he smiled with disarming candour. 
“Certainly I had no intention of appropriating your hon¬ 
ours—not permanently, I mean. But see here, I can’t go 
around now and tell people I wasn’t the hero after all— 
that I didn’t get any further than inside the door of that 
accursed barn, after I’ve accepted their congratulations 
and stood up there like a little tin god; now, can I ?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“Right-o! Good boy! I thought perhaps you’d see it 
184 


MANY WATERS 


that way. Then you’re going to continue to let me carry 
off the honours of the evening?” 

Mark nodded. 

“It isn’t that I don’t appreciate what you did for me,” 
Donald continued. “I mean not alone saving Prince— 
I’m no end grateful for that; but I mean this other thing. 
I don’t mind telling you I felt like a skunk about it last 
night after you and Marian had gone. I tell you I can’t 
think what made me do that—let them all think it was I.” 
He laughed. “It is rather a joke when you stop to think 
about it—my bunkoing them all like that! But when you 
put that rope into my hands, there, just inside the bam 
door, and told me to go ahead, I had no idea of doing 
what I did, or anything like it. I hope you’ll understand 
that. In fact, I didn’t have any ideas at all; I was too 
scared to think. It was a thousand times worse in there 
than I expected!— That smoke! And the heat! How did 
you do it, Mark? Tell me about it.” 

Mark shook his head. 

“I can’t. I don’t remember. I only recall feeling I had 
to get in there, somehow—and the horses kicking and 
trampling. I knew where Prince’s box was, fortunately. 
He seemed a little calmer than the others. I remember 
there was a rope some one had left hanging on a wall. I 
don’t recall anything else—except finding you outside the 
stall. I think Prince recognised you.” 

Donald’s face was serious. “It must have been hell! 
And then I slip in and take all the credit! I expect you 
think I’m a good deal of a rotter. It was when I heard 
them cheering and all that I fell. I like popular adulation 
—like to show my feathers off, I suppose.” 

Mark waved the matter aside. “It’s all one who did it. 
You did rush in,” he said. “You had every intention of 
rescuing your horse—the bravery was all there all right; 

185 


MANY WATERS 


and you probably funked the danger less than I did. I 
only happened to have got ahead of you, that was all.” 

“Rather small thanks you got!” 

“That’s of no consequence.” 

Donald nodded and sighed. “I suppose what you say is 
true. It makes me feel better, anyway. You always were 
a noble character, Mark—too noble; that’s your trouble! 
I wish I had half your virtues! I’d stand a better chance 
of heaven if I did. But after all, would I have as good a 
time here on earth? One can’t tell. Well, I won’t detain 
you longer; you’re busy.” 

He rose and stretched out his hand across the table. 
“Oh, no, never mind; I see it’s bandaged. Too bad! Let 
me know if it goes on all right. Bother you any?’’ 
Mark shook his head. “Right-o! See you next vacation, 
I hope. Good-bye.” 

Donald went down the road towards the village with a 
lightened heart, a comforting sense of duty done. It was 
a glorious day, bright, clear sunlight after the week of 
storm. He felt in excellent spirits; his faith in himself 
was restored. After all, Fate could never be hard on him. 

2 

Somewhat later in the day Marian met Donald in Whit- 
ridge and he asked her if he might call at the cottage that 
evening. She gave assent with mingled feelings of delight 
and trepidation, and went home in a delicious flutter of 
excitement. 

Oddly enough she had never had a caller before. Mark, 
it is true, had “stopped by” at the cottage on summer 
evenings before now, and they had sat together on the 
front steps. She wished it were warm enough to do that 
now. There was something friendly and informal about 
the steps; but she felt that was out of the question. Com- 
186 


MANY WATERS 

mon politeness demanded that she take him inside in the 
little cottage parlour, and she knew that there she would 
feel the weight of conversation. And there were her 
mother and Ted. How would they act ? 

Alas! when the time came she felt that they had be¬ 
haved as badly as possible. Nevertheless, beforehand 
she looked forward with joyful anticipation to his com¬ 
ing. This visit of Donald’s held for her a keen signifi¬ 
cance. 

To Donald there was nothing remarkable in his going 
now to the cottage, despite the fact that never heretofore 
had he done so. Perhaps he might have raced through 
the stable yard in a game of “tag” with Mark and Marian 
in bygone years, but ever since he first left Whitridge to 
go away to school he had held himself aloof from the 
cottage and its inhabitants—save for his friendship with 
Marian. Not that he had remained away consciously, as 
had his mother; it was only that he had never before felt 
any desire to go there. Now he did; a sudden interest in 
Marian and in her surroundings animated him; and he 
saw nothing incongruous in presenting himself thus tardily 
at its door. Or if he had, his fancy setting that way, he 
would have gone just the same. Donald was not one of 
those who trouble themselves by thinking very far ahead; 
the impulse to do a thing was sufficient unto the moment, 
and his impulse now was to go there to Marian. 

His motive in making the visit was simple. He did love 
Marian in a way—at least, he loved the young eagerness 
of her caresses, and he felt quite sure that she cared de¬ 
votedly for him. On the other hand, it scarcely occurred 
to him that she might suppose his ardent love-making that 
night on the dunes to be the equivalent of a proposal of 
marriage—at its least, a sincere profession of love. Yet 
all the time he was not quite sure in his own mind that it 

187 


MANY WATERS 


was not love. He only knew he wanted to see her; so he 
went to the cottage. 

Afterward he smiled good humouredly at the reception 
he got. But for him there was in it none of the tragedy 
which poor little Marian found in it. He had been a trifle 
vexed; the evening had not been quite what he expected; 
but there were plenty of other evenings; his calm was 
unruffled. 

Marian received him in the little cottage parlour. Ted 
was out the first part of the evening, but Elaine was there, 
sitting like a wooden image in her corner of the room. It 
was difficult making conversation. Donald was very polite. 

“I haven’t seen you out riding of late, Mrs. Pritchard,” 
he began ingratiatingly. “Don’t you do as much of it as 
you used to?” 

Elaine stared at him stonily. “I’ve still a number of 
pupils,” she answered shortly. 

“It must be a jolly nuisance, sometimes, teaching them 
to stick on and all that,” Donald continued. 

“I’ve my living to make,” Elaine responded bleakly. 

After that Donald addressed his conversation to Marian. 
But there was little to talk about with Elaine sitting by, 
grimly listening, or else pretending, with an assumed 
patience, to read the book on her knees. There was little 
or no satisfaction in the more or less formal interchange 
of commonplaces, even though Donald was affability itself 
in the way he handled the difficult situation. 

And then Ted came in. There was not much cordiality 
in his greeting, either; but matters might not have been 
so bad if the conversation had not unfortunately turned 
on the recent fire at the Hall and its consequences. Three 
valuable horses had been lost; and this, Ted remarked, was 
entirely unnecessary. Donald disagreed with him. The 
firemen, he said, had done their best. He told how fierce 
188 


MANY WATERS 


the fire was, backed by Marian (Ted had not been present 
at it), and quoted the usual opinion concerning the impos¬ 
sibility of rescuing horses under such conditions. Ted at 
times was rather childish. Somewhat braggartly he de¬ 
clared if he had been there he could have saved them—and 
without ‘'all that fuss!” 

Marian heard his words with the gravest concern and 
embarrassment. To her Donald’s act had been the most 
heroic thing she had ever witnessed. She felt she would 
see him always coming unscathed out through that burn¬ 
ing door, smiling, with the docile horse at his heels. 
Surely there was here something of divine protection— 
because he was Donald, beloved of the gods! Had her 
admiration for him admitted of an increase, had she not 
loved him so devotedly before, that vision must have made 
it sure. Nor was she alone in this. All Whitridge had 
heard and applauded the deed. How dreadful of Ted to 
try to belittle it! She misread Donald’s aversion to speak 
of the rescue at length for modesty. Yet she did know 
that he was irritated by Ted’s remarks, surely at the least 
in bad taste. She saw that he was annoyed. 

He kept his temper, however, and at last took his leave. 
Marian watched him go with a sinking heart. It was all 
rather bleak after that wonderful night on the dunes now 
so long ago. Thinking it over after the lights were out 
and the household asleep she tried not to feel that it had 
really been so terrible. Her mother simply didn’t under¬ 
stand that she was grown up. Yet she ought to have 
known; there was Ted. ... In the darkness Marian 
blushed. 

She awoke in the morning tired and depressed. In¬ 
stead of seeming less reprehensible on reflection, her moth¬ 
er’s and Ted’s conduct of the night before appeared worse. 
It seemed to her now that they had been inexcusably rude. 
189 


MANY WATERS 


She was ashamed, bitterly ashamed; it seemed to her that 
her family had shown a fearful want of taste and that she 
herself was associated with them in the general downfall. 
The humiliation was not made less, since it was as if she 
must, of necessity, side with them, must go with them 
into the category of ill-bred people. To criticise them as 
apart from herself would have seemed disloyal. She felt 
simply as if all of them, she and her mother and Ted, had 
proved themselves inferior. 

She brooded about the house all morning, answering 
questions put to her in vague, distrait monosyllables. In 
the afternoon she went for a long ride along the sea coast. 
It was a grey day and the beach was bare and deserted. 
She saw the gaunt headland rising grimly from the sea, 
and the dunes cold in the pale light. Nevertheless, it was 
good to be there, to be alone with Nance who never worried 
her, and the wheeling sea gulls. The ride soothed her. 

But on her return her restlessness came back. Elaine 
was cross and tired and Ted out of humour; Marian began 
once more to think about Donald and what his opinion of 
her must be. Even the fact that he had not appeared to 
mind particularly failed to comfort her. At last on a 
sudden inspiration she went up to her room and wrote him 
a little note: 

“Dear Donald: 

“Em sorry about last night. I am afraid we were 
rather rude to you, but you know we don't mean it—at 
least, / never would. I want to see you to tell you how 
sorry I am. I think mother and Ted are, too. If you’re 
not angry, will you walk down here to-morrow evening? 
I’ll wait for you at the gate so you won’t have to come up 
to the house if you’d rather not. Please come. 

“Marian.” 

190 


MANY WATERS 


While her mother and Ted were still at dinner she 
slipped out and mailed it. 


3 

The postman was coming up the Hall drive as Connie, 
returning from a solitary stroll in the direction of Whit- 
ridge, and having come back by way of the Thornton 
Road and the back entrance, rounded the corner of the 
house. 

She waited for him on the steps of the terrace, thinking 
he might have a letter for her. He gave the afternoon’s 
budget of mail into her hands—a single letter addressed 
to Donald. 

Connie stood in the shade of the terrace trees and looked 
at the letter in her hands. The hues of autumn had al¬ 
ready decked the trees of the avenue in garments of scar¬ 
let, crimson and gold, and, as Connie stood there, the dry 
leaves from the branches above her began to fall softly. 

She made a very pretty picture standing there on the 
smooth terrace with the coloured leaves falling all about 
her, very pretty in her dark, close-fitting hat and the little 
band of fur at the throat of her dress, a very pretty pic¬ 
ture, indeed, had there chanced to be any one there to see 
her. But there was no one; Connie had made sure of this 
by a swift glance at the row of front windows. 

Connie stood with downcast eyes staring at the white 
square in her hands. She turned it over once or twice. 

A sudden gust of wind sent the leaves shivering down 
once more and Connie raised her head to watch them. But 
she was not thinking of the leaves at all. She scarcely 
saw them fluttering softly down or heard the sibilant 
whisper of their fall. 

With a little sigh, Connie turned and entered the house. 
There was no one in the big square hall, but a newly lighted 

191 


MANY WATERS 


fire on the hearth made it cheerful. Connie stood watch¬ 
ing the fire broodingly, and toyed with the letter still in 
her hands. Her fingers were itching to open it. She 
looked at the fire and back again, and a strange thought 
shot through her mind. If she were just to throw the 
letter on the fire, now, like this, without opening it, it 
wouldn’t be such a terrible thing to do. No one would 
know. Lots of letters did get lost, mislaid, you know, 
or have something happen to them. It wouldn’t be as if 
she had read the thing and knew what was in it. 

With an effort of will she put the letter down on the hall 
table—true she placed it face down—and ran up the stairs 
to her room, where she took off her hat and coat. Ran¬ 
sacking through the papers on her desk, she pulled out a 
note from the rest, and with it still in her hand ran hastily 
back downstairs. 

The other note still lay on the hall table; no one had 
been in. Connie picked it up and compared it with the 
one in her hand, Marian’s little note of regret of a few 
days back. As she had surmised, the handwriting on the 
two was identical. 

Having compared them to her satisfaction, Connie 
slipped her own note inside her blouse. She held the other 
in her hand tentatively, balanced it, as if weighing its 
contents. There was a little puzzled wrinkle between her 
brows. 

What could Marian be writing Donald about ? 

Connie was consumed with curiosity. She put the 
letter down and then took it up again. It seemed to her 
that she must know what Marian was writing to Donald 
about. And yet, subconsciously, she felt that she did 
know. 

Donald had told her in a more or less humorous way 
about his call on Marian and some of the things that had 
192 


MANY WATERS 

been said. Connie pretended to be greatly amused, but 
underneath the amusement ran a current of uneasiness. 
She read more than Donald would have supposed into 
that simple visit of his to the cottage. 

She was thinking of it now, and wondering if Marian’s 
note might not be in reference to it. Was she asking him 
to come again? Connie had decided in her own mind 
that it was that. She was almost sure of it. 

If only she could have one little peep at the inside! 

There was a sound just outside the hall door and Connie 
started. She turned instinctively towards the fire. Al¬ 
most before she knew it Connie had yielded to the tempta¬ 
tion and tossed the letter into the flames. She turned to 
greet Donald as he entered with a mysterious little smile 
and a somewhat heightened colour. She felt terribly 
nervous, but Donald did not notice. He looked into Con¬ 
nie’s eyes, black as sloe berries, smiling up at him; and 
waited for her to speak. She chose her words carefully 
with an apparent carelessness: 

“I say, you won’t be going out to-night, will you? I’ve 
promised your mother we’d play bridge with them. Don’t 
look so cross. It won’t be for very long; they get tired, 
you know. After that I’ll sing for you or we’ll have a 
stroll in the garden if it isn’t too cold. Does that suit 
you?” 


4 

The stars were very bright that night as Marian waited 
at the gate for the lover who did not come. There was a 
fresh crispness in the air but it was not at all cold. She 
rather enjoyed the peace and restfulness of the scene for 
the first twenty minutes or so, although her heart was 
eager for his coming. 

Ted had left her at the gate on his way to Thornton. 
193 


MANY WATERS 


She watched him swinging down the road with long care¬ 
less strides. She was glad to see him going out and to 
know that he would not be back until late. Her mother 
had not been well for several days and had gone to bed 
early. Marian was alone with the night and the stars. 

She waited at the gate, occasionally taking a short turn 
up the drive and back, but never far enough to be out of 
sight or to lose the first glimpse of him as he came. 

She was so sure that he would come. The minutes, the 
quarter hours, the half hours slipped by. Twice she heard 
footsteps coming along the road and her heart pounded 
eagerly. But the first time it was only old Danny Devine, 
the blacksmith, who passed and wished her a gruff good¬ 
night in passing; and the other time, some one approaching 
from the other direction had apparently come only a little 
way along the road and then turned back, for no one passed 
the gate. She knew it was not Donald. 

She waited, chilled and silent, for over two hours, 
standing there under the friendless stars, alone and sick at 
heart. At last, puzzled and humiliated, she returned to the 
house. She thought he must still be angry and she couldn’t 
understand it. She felt that she would have forgiven him 
anything! 

And of course Donald was not angry, had never been 
angry. He had thought of Marian on the way home that 
night after his unfortunate visit, and felt rather sorry for 
her. Personally, once the first irritation had worn off, 
he was rather amused by the whole affair. Only, poor 
little girl! she had seemed so embarrassed. Rotten life 
she must lead there, tied up to that exacting woman. And 
the other, the horsy chap, had made rather an ass of him¬ 
self. Donald dismissed Ted from his mind without 
further thought. 

On the whole, his feeling towards Marian was much 
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more tender than before. Had chance, in the person of 
Connie, not cheated her of her right, things might have 
gone differently. Had he received her letter, Donald would 
have gone to her willingly, gladly. Instead, not having 
seen or heard from her since, he went whistling down the 
hill in the opposite direction, and spent the early part of 
the evening in Tim Buckstone’s billiard parlour in the 
village, returning, somewhat late, for the promised brief 
game of bridge with his parents and Connie. 

He never suspected that rather commonplace evening 
of being a turning point in his life, yet such it was. Love 
is an impalpable thing, a fragile bloom whose life depends 
on many a chance wind that blows encouraging or retard¬ 
ing, fostering or destroying at a breath. For a little while 
Donald felt for Marian, if not love, at least the promise 
of it. She dwelt in his heart pure and inviolable, a lily 
trembling in a quiet place, his to pluck should he choose 
to stretch out his hand; he was only too careless to 
gather it. 

Had they met that night under the cool radiance of the 
stars the tale would have been different; instead, Donald’s 
absence changed it all, made it simply another of those 
thousands of affairs that never definitely materialise, never 
quite come off. 

In occasional thoughts on the matter Donald held him¬ 
self quite guiltless of any blame in that matter of making 
love to her. It did not occur to him that he had hurt her, 
made her unhappy. How could he think that, having seen 
the light of love in her eyes. Rather, he felt, agreeably, 
perhaps rather nobly, that he had made her happy—at 
least, for a night. Had he been capable of being touched 
by the pity of imagination he might have acted differently; 
but his philosophy of life admitted no such interpretation. 
He was too much engrossed with living as an art, as a 
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delicate and illusory thing, too self-indulgent to resist the 
temptation to give pleasure where it was so obviously pos¬ 
sible for him to do so; or, perhaps, even unable to deny 
himself the lyric rapture which still lay for him in the 
clear, unclouded love in a young girl’s eyes, spoke from her 
lips or manifested itself in the wild beating of her heart 
held close to his. 

So he might have explained the situation to himself. 
He was not to be judged. As it was, he hovered on the 
edge of the only real and perfect love he would ever know, 
hovered hopefully; but Connie’s hand pulled him back. 
Donald was not the first man whose life has been changed 
by circumstances trifling in themselves. 


CHAPTER XII 


i 

M ARIAN did not understand why Donald had not 
come to her that night when she waited by the 
gate. Her faith had had a shock, but her pride 
forbade her speaking of it on the few occasions afterward 
when she saw him before he returned to college. He 
wrote her from thence much as he had been accustomed 
to do, letters slight and not overinteresting, but epitomes 
of himself in their careless, casual good humour. 

“F11 see you at Christmas,” he wrote her in one of 
these; and she looked forward with eagerness to the time. 
But he came before that. 

He came before that to attend the deathbed of his 
mother. Clara Callender died early in December at the 
Hall. The funeral was from the little village church, St. 
Peter’s by the Sea, where it stands on the cliffs overlook¬ 
ing the wide distances of ocean, a windy waste of troubled 
waters on this chill winter day. 

The mourners filed slowly up to the door, heads bent 
against the north wind that rattled amongst the wires of 
the life-saving station, sent whirls of grey sand scurrying, 
and wuthered in the hollows between the dunes. 

Marian went to the funeral. There were not many 
present in spite of the importance of the Hall in local 
estimation; one or two motors out from Thornton, Mr. 
Horner and his daughter, half a dozen friends of Donald’s, 
with a sprinkling of tradespeople. 

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She saw Donald only for a moment as he entered the 
church to sit beside his father in the front pew. He looked 
not so much grieved as if trying to accommodate himself 
to the situation. The dignity of the bereaved sat ill upon 
him. Far more convincing old Colonel Callender’s bowed 
grey head and eyes that, for all his conscientious efforts, 
showed unmistakable traces of weeping. 

Connie had come, too, dressed in faultless black. She 
sat unobtrusively in the centre of the church and kept her 
veil down—not, as might have been inferred, to hide evi¬ 
dences of her sorrow, but because the chill north wind had 
made her nose red, and the powder she had surreptitiously 
applied in the carriage would no longer stick. 

She sat silent and dignified in her place not far from 
where Marian was, but inexplicably she avoided the latter’s 
eyes. Poor Connie was not to be blamed. It is always 
difficult to forgive those whom we have injured. In 
haughty silence she left the church again without having 
spoken. 

Marian saw Donald only once before he left Whitridge 
again. It was in Whitridge’s main street in front of 
Smith’s “General Store,” when he gravely thanked her 
for the note she had written him. He seemed rather at a 
loss for words, and she thought with a pang, “He isn’t 
meant for sorrow; he shouldn’t have it.” Colonel Cal¬ 
lender was waiting for him in the motor across the street. 
Everything was hurried and unsatisfactory. No time for 
anything beyond the most banal formalities. She saw him 
leave her with a quick quiver of pain. 

It was February before he wrote her again. When he 
did it was to say, “I’m not going to finish college—not 
going back again. My father’s rather miserable and at 
loose ends so I’ve planned to join him instead. I don’t 
know how matters will work out. We may travel a bit. 

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MANY WATERS 

For the present we’re both going to the Leveredges’ for 
a time. . . 

Two months later, on a day when April trembled like a 
bride at the lips of spring, she heard the announcement 
of his and Connie’s engagement. 

2 

The April night was still and sweet as Marian stood by 
the gate long after the others had gone indoors. The rain 
in the middle of the day had left the garden full of a poign¬ 
ant odour—the passionate, troubling odour of spring. A 
breath from the apple tree over near the house floated 
across to her as she stood there where once, months ago, 
one haunting autumn night, she had waited in vain for 
her lover. She stood there now, resting her arms on the 
top of the gate, leaning a little out over the road. 

A gap in the trees across the way let through an ir¬ 
regular patch of pale, greenish sky with one vivid star 
gleaming in its centre. She could hear the sea just dimly 
beating on its sandy shore, but seemingly very far away. 
She turned back for a moment and looked at the garden. 

The Judas tree in the corner of the yard was decked 
with its purple sprays. It stood outlined against the white 
side of the house; and beside it the japonica bush held up 
red, waxlike blossoms like cups to catch the dew. The 
magnolia tree was heavy with buds waiting to burst into 
bloom. 

Marian stood there for a long time in the dusk; a vague, 
indefinite yearning crept to her out of the garden; and 
still the poignant scent of lilies, heart-searchingly sweet, 
drifted across her consciousness. There were so many 
this year, just there beside her, under the hedge. She had 
always looked forward so to their coming. 

She turned back to the gate once more and stood staring 
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MANY WATERS 


at the greenish patch of sky. The stars were bright; they 
had been bright that other night, too. If only that troub¬ 
ling scent of lilies would not come. . . . Then, through 
the silence, the whistle of a train shrilled its message, clear, 
distinct, its strange, half-articulate call of distance, adven¬ 
ture, and far strange lands; poignant, intense, so that the 
sound was ever to be associated in her mind with heart¬ 
break. Never again in after years would she hear it with¬ 
out remembering this night and its deep, intolerable pain. 

She went over and stood beside the Judas tree, her hand 
touching the smooth bark. She ran her hand along one of 
the branches, feeling the delicate blossoms as they slipped 
under her fingers, and held it between her eyes and the 
clear, greenish sky. The stars, seen through the mist of 
purple sprays, were like fireflies entangled in a net. 

The Judas tree! The Judas tree! 

Suddenly the significance of its name struck her. She 
closed her eyes, and, leaning forward, pressed her lips 
passionately against the bark. 

The Judas tree! The Judas tree! 

The warm fragrance of the crushed blossoms came to 
her mixed with the scent of lilies and the sweet, intangible 
odour of moist earth; the loveliness of it hurt her. 

And suddenly, as an odour, elusive and meaningless in 
itself, will somehow recall memories of scenes with which 
it has no connection, so now Marian thought of the sea. 
The memory of that night on the dunes with Donald was 
heavy on her, grew unbearable. 

A swift glance at the lighted windows of the cottage 
told her all was quiet inside. She would not be missed and 
she felt that she must go. She turned and sped down the 
path and through the gate. The long road to the shore lay 
ahead of her, and down it she went. 

She came breathless to the white mass of the dunes out- 


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MANY WATERS 


lined against the deepening purple of the sky. She stood 
where she and Donald had stood that night in June so 
many months ago; but then the tide had been low and the 
long shining stretches of beach silver in the moonlight. 
Now, high up on the sand, the water gurgled and eddied 
and broke with stealthy suddenness almost at her feet. 
She was thinly clad and the chill wind blew against her. 
Far away to her right the gleaming lights of Tono- 
met shone steadily, arching through the night. She gazed 
at them, with her heart like a bird’s wings beating vainly 
against them. They looked so cruel and mocking, those 
clear, unwinking lights, like a fairy bridge across the sky— 
like the bridge of her dreams! 

She stood there shivering in the wind, hearing the sea 
crying at her feet. Her heart was bitter, as bitter and rest¬ 
less as the sea. At last, turning back, she walked slowly 
home. 

She went up to the house. A great lethargy seemed to 
weigh down her limbs. The front door was standing par¬ 
tially open. She pushed it wide and entered the little dark 
hall. 

In the room to the-right she heard her mother’s voice, 
high-pitched, querulous, talking to Ted, quarrelling about 
something. For a moment she paused. If only she might 
go away by herself; but it was too- early to go to bed, and 
a queer kind of pride kept her from seeking the privacy 
of her own room and the seclusion she craved. 

With a little sigh she entered the living room. Her 
mother glanced up at her but did not stop her rapid-flowing 
tirade. Ted sat, morosely sullen, sunk down on his spine, 
his hands in his pockets. He paid no attention when 
Marian entered. 

She sank into a corner of the couch and watched them 
with dull, unwinking eyes. Although almost as long as 
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she could remember these two had been bound up with 
her life, inseparable figures of her childhood and compan¬ 
ions of her youth, yet, as she watched them, she was 
struck with something unfamiliar. They seemed to her 
unreal to-night—like puppets on a stage. She felt herself 
definitely dissociated, so that she could judge them. She 
saw how her mother had aged, and how Ted had coarsened 
with the years. She heard their querulous voices disput¬ 
ing some unimportant point, angry, discourteous—yet this, 
this stage scene spread before her with all its sordid, fa¬ 
miliar setting, this had been one of the great romances of 
the world, a story-book romance, the whole world sacri¬ 
ficed for love—this ! 

And suddenly she felt a great disgust for all love. 
There was no such thing as perfect love, perfect faith, 
perfect understanding; only fools and dreamers hoped for 
it—fools like herself, and dreamers with the rose-coloured 
mist of romance in their eyes! 

Had she not the proof of that here before her? Her 
mother had sacrificed everything for love. She was a 
luxury-loving woman, a high-principled woman, yet she 
had let it all go by the board; she had left her husband and 
run away with her lover, given up her whole world of 
pleasing realities for the dreams of a dreamer, for the 
sake of an enduring and immortal love, a deathless pas¬ 
sion ! And here were she and Ted wrangling like any ill- 
matched couple! 

She restrained a wild desire to laugh. But she was 
right, she had guessed the truth—faith was a dream, and 
love but a feeble fancy—a sop thrown to the laws of life! 

She went on turning this over and over in her mind. 
For half an hour she forced herself to sit there contem¬ 
plating her ruined hopes. It was necessary to keep up ap¬ 
pearances before her mother and Ted, even though they 
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paid no attention to her and could not know, as yet, what 
she already knew of Donald and his affairs. At last, at 
the end of the half hour, she rose with an impatient gesture 
and went to her room. 

She leaned far out of the window. Here where she had 
so often leaned in the old days, the brave days, the good 
days! And on those two nights when he had kissed her, 
nights of delicate whiteness. 

Now the night was dark and pregnant with storm. She 
heard the wind moaning in the trees along the road, the 
wind that had been so gentle before. It blew in at her 
window, tossing the hair about her cheeks, blustering and 
threatening, as if it would blow the old dreams out of her 
head. The stars were gone, blotted out by the thick belly¬ 
ing clouds. The trees in the garden below her tossed and 
shivered unceasingly. 

She heard the first big drops of rain pelting on the porch 
roof, and bowed her head on her hands. With the beat¬ 
ing drops her tears were set free. 

Always she was grateful for that rain, for the long 
rolling crescendo of pattering drops that covered and hid 
her sobs. Always she looked back at that spring as a time 
of passionate resistance to a dark, slowly rising tide of 
despair. Never in after life could she hear the ghostly 
tapping of rain upon the roof without recalling those dull, 
patient months of pain, revolt and resignation. 

In the morning, in the early dawn, she knelt, white¬ 
faced, again at her window. The cool, soft wind from the 
rain-drenched garden drifted in to her. In the wan dawn- 
light she made her prayer, thinking of Donald and Connie 
the while: 

“God, make me strong! God, help me to bear it! help 
me to understand, to be charitable! God, help me to be 
kind!” 


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MANY WATERS 


Then with clear eyes she went down to meet the world. 
She had failed, she had lost where she had trusted; but no 
one should guess her loss. It had seemed to her that a 
miracle had come to pass. In her ecstasy she had fancied 
the path of love a long, fragrant, flower-laden road, she 
had never thought of such a tragedy as this in connection 
with herself. She saw now how unfounded is that sure 
faith that every girl has that one day the man she is to 
love will come to her. He had come, and selfishly she had 
fancied she could keep him. She had forgotten how many 
women do lose their lovers. Painfully she acknowledged 
her own unworthiness. It was, indeed, too wonderful 
that he should love her! She must give that thought up 
now; she would wish for their happiness—his and Con¬ 
nie’s. She would still be faithful to her memory of him, 
that was all. 


CHAPTER XIII 


i 


JGUST was come again. How many Augusts had 



she dreamed away the sunlit days and star-filled 


^ nights, hearing the shrill cicadas’ murmur and the 
deep-throated song of birds. August was come, August 
wrapt in sunlight, deep-bowered in green, heavy lidded, 
somnolent, ruddy, like a jovial winebibber, passionate, 
replete. The locusts droned all day and the crickets 
scarcely waited for the dusk to begin their throbbing 


music. 


Marian viewed the familiar scenes with calm eyes. She 
was at peace after long months of stress and effort. She 
told herself that she was content, but it seemed to her that 
she was much older now. This August found her not 
much different in body; but in mind many degrees removed 
from those old years that came and found her care¬ 
free. 

Towards the end of June had come the news of Don¬ 
ald’s and Connie’s marriage. It had taken place at the 
Leveredges’ home, Singley Park, and had been, from all 
accounts, a very impressive affair. The happy couple had 
gone abroad for a few months; it was said in the village 
that they would be back in the autumn, that Connie had 
made an unusually lovely bride, that the wedding cake 
weighed a perfectly unheard-of amount and the whole 
affair, in spite of having been kept small out of regard for 
the family’s mourning, had been sumptuous to a degree. 


205 


MANY WATERS 


Marian heard the chatter dully. She knew that at home, 
at any rate, they guessed something of her pain; and it 
added to her burden. 

On the day that news of the wedding came, her mother 
had put her arm around her and drawn the girl to her in 
an impulsive embrace. The gesture, coming from Elaine, 
was unnatural, forced, affected; Marian crimsoned and 
was silent. 

Ted understood better. He gave no outward sign that 
he knew she suffered anything, but he took extra pains 
with Nance’s glossy coat, he left Marian to take rides by 
herself, not offering his company, but appearing with his 
own horse saddled in case she wanted him. And Marian 
found that sometimes she did want him. They rode to¬ 
gether more than they used to; his silent sympathy could 
not offend her. Yet it hurt her to be made aware that he 
and her mother had talked her over between them. 

At this time she tried to interest herself in her books. 
They used to give her pleasure; but now, when she took 
down the familiar volumes, their words were like dust 
that crumbled beneath her touch. She gave it up and 
went for long walks. At first these comforted her, but 
after a while it became an effort. 

She would think, ‘Til go for a long walk. But where ? 
Down the Tonomet road.” Instantly the whole road was 
visible before her, every yard of it, white in the sunlight, 
the rustling green trees as it led out of Whitridge, the 
brown backs of the headlands as one neared the sea, the 
blue, blue sky overhead dotted with fleecy white clouds, all 
the well-remembered beauty to pierce her heart with recol¬ 
lections of days when she was happy. And of a sudden all 
thought but of Donald would go. Though she reproached 
herself for it many times, it was impossible not to tell 
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MANY WATERS 


herself how she would have given him all her youth and 
sweetness, yielded him the secret recesses of her soul, giv¬ 
ing him love, full measure and overflowing! Then she 
would tell herself how she was forgetting that Connie 
could give him the same—perhaps even more abundantly, 
for was she not infinitely more attractive? So she told 
herself, rebuking the wild rebellion of her mind; yet al¬ 
ways, underneath, she knew that she had loved him better 
than Connie; instinctively she knew it, deny it as she 
would; and, like the true woman she was, resented Con¬ 
nie’s possession of him. 

When these thoughts came there was but one recollec¬ 
tion proof against their bitterness—the memory of that 
night on the dunes. That was hers, even Connie could 
never take that from her! 

Nevertheless, August found her calm, almost content. 

One morning she had walked up the long Callender hill 
past the entrance gates of the Hall. The house had been 
closed since the preceding autumn, so that there was little 
danger of meeting any one. Beside the stone gate post 
Marian paused a moment to gaze into the deep-green arch¬ 
way of the avenue. It startled her somewhat to see a 
figure round the turn within the drive. Her first thought 
that it might be Donald, and her equally quick realisation 
that it was not, almost confused her, so suddenly did re¬ 
lief and disappointment mingle. 

She saw, with a little belated flutter of pleasure, that it 
was Mark Wetherell. He advanced, hat in hand, his arm 
outstretched in greeting. 

“What luck! This is good to meet you like this. I 
was going to stop in at your place. How have you been ? 
Your family all well? No need to ask after you; you 
look just the same.” 

Marian was really delighted to see him. She asked 
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vaguely the meaning of his visit here at the Hall, and he 
gave her instant information. 

“I had a line from the Colonel asking me to look in at 
the old place and see how things were going—if every¬ 
thing was all right, and all that. It’s been shut up quite a 
while, you know; and he hasn’t been able to get down 
himself. He’s gone abroad now to join Donald—per¬ 
haps you’ve heard?” 

She shook her head. “Then they are still there ?’’ 

Strange how natural her voice sounded! 

“Yes, still there, for a while, at least. Though the 
Colonel thinks he’ll bring them home with him when he 
comes next month.” 

“Next month!” The words vibrated in her ears. 

But Mark was speaking again: 

“I’ve a pile of work to do before I go back. I’ve got 
to run in to Thornton now to order some things. Pen- 
nyman’s going to pick me up down below on his way in. 
I’m afraid ’ll have to hurry. I’m glad to have met you 
here; I was going to look you up this evening. If I were 
to come around after dinner, early—that is, before eight 
—do you think—that is—would you take a walk with 
me?” 

She looked up at his eager eyes, and something in their 
blue depths hurt her unreasonably. She wanted to de¬ 
cline, something told her it would be the wise thing to do 
—yet it seemed a little favour to grant an old friend. He 
must know that she had no engagements. She hesitated 
a moment, then said : 

“Yes, if you come early enough. I mustn’t be out 
late. Mother is not very well just now. I don’t want to 
keep her up.’ ? 

It seemed safer, somehow, to go early. 

“I’ll be there before you’ve finished dinner,” he de- 
208 


MANY WATERS 


dared. “You’re going the other way, I suppose; well, 
good-bye; I’m sorry. But we’ll see each other to-night 
then.” 

She watched him swinging down the hill towards the 
Thornton road, then turned and slowly pursued her way 
back to the cottage. However, she was not thinking of 
Mark as she went, but of what he had said of Donald. 

They were coming back—perhaps next month! 

Her first feeling had been one of resentment. Why 
must they come back to exhibit their happiness to her? 
Why couldn’t they leave her alone ? Why must she have 
been created a girl? A man could go away and forget— 

“I will go my ways from the city, and then, maybe, 
My heart shall forget one woman’s voice, and her lips,”— 

could go afar, “among stranger-folk” and in “wandering 
ships”; but for one tied as she was, what prospect but to 
stay, to bear it with the best grace she could? 

But slowly these thoughts gave place to others. After 
all, she wanted to see Donald; she had not realised before 
how much she wanted it; and she had always admired 
Connie. The wedding was far more suitable than her 
own to Donald would have been. Whitridge was their 
home as well as hers; they had every right to come. She 
soothed herself with the old arguments, and by the time 
Mark called at the house, shortly before eight, she was 
her old tranquil self again. 


2 

When Mark proposed that they walk down past the 
sand dunes, she agreed at once. What difference did it 
make? What right had she to refuse to go to the dunes 
—to consider them hers, to keep Mark from them if he 
209 


MANY WATERS 


wished to go there? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered. 
Only there seemed a subtle irony in it all. 

But when they came to the seashore they passed the 
dunes and walked instead along the hard, level sands, 
golden white in the moonlight; for, as if in mockery of 
that other time, the moon to-night was full, too, or almost 
full. It shone with a steady radiance, a round, heavy 
moon, orange-red as it rose triumphantly over the water, 
full-flushed, replete, drunken with beauty. 

But the other, ah! the other! That had been a pale 
moon, the moon of spring, the cold, white, passionate 
moon of spring! a moon of dreams and hopes and visions, 
lighting a silvery pathway across the world to the land 
of heart’s desire, a cold, waxen, faithless, worshipped 
moon; yet the moon of love; not this, not this. . . . 

But she was here and Mark was speaking. 

“Marian dear,” he said. 

It was coming, then! She turned towards him, away 
from the big, red-yellow moon, her heart filled with a 
yearning tenderness for him. If only she could stop him, 
make him see how useless it was before he began. She 
had been afraid of this when she consented to come here 
with him. But what could she say? Nothing; better to 
let him speak. She wished with all her heart that her 
answer could be different. But here, to-night, with the 
sound of the sea in her ears. . . . 

“It was good of you to come to-night. I could see you 
didn’t very much want to.” 

So she had let him see that! She couldn’t even do that 
much for him—so she reproached herself. Aloud she 
said: 

“No, no, Mark; that isn’t so. I wanted to come. It 
was only, only that—” 

“Wait,” he said, and drew her two hands into his 
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MANY WATERS 


warm, firm clasp, “wait, dear, and don’t try to discourage 
me before I’ve begun. I know you think you know what 
I’m going to say, but not all of it.” 

Ah! didn’t she? The level sands stretched out before 
and behind them, golden grey under the moon, pinkish 
where the wavelets broke and receded; beyond them, in 
irregular humps, the dull green and white of the dunes 
broke the skyline. They seemed to be alone in the whole 
universe, just the two of them moving slowly along the 
deserted sands, Marian bareheaded, in her rough white 
coat. She paused and lifted her face to his, listening. 
After all, it was the least she could do for him. 

So once again, there on the golden sands, he poured out 
the tale of his love for her, the eager words stumbling, 
tumbling from his lips; but in the end all she could do 
was to shake her head. 

“But, Marian, I love you. All my life I’ve loved you. 
You know that, don’t you, dear?” 

“Yes, I know.” 

“Ah, but if I could only once make you understand how 
I love you, how I want you!’’ 

“Mark, don’t!” she whispered. 

He was silent for a moment; then, still holding both 
her hands he turned her further around towards him, and 
she caught the faint, tweedy, tobacco smell of him above 
the salt scent of the sea. 

“Darling,” he said, “look at me! You’ve thought I 
was just stupid about all this—wanting you like this and 
never giving up asking you. You’ve thought I didn’t 
understand. But I did. I’ve never told you, but I knew 
—ever since that night of the fire up at the Callenders’, 
I’ve known.” 

“Known . . . what?” 

Her eyes in the dim shadow were inscrutable. 

211 


MANY WATERS 


Mark hesitated. It was all so difficult—not to offend 
her and yet to say what he had to say. He stood staring 
down at her. She had drawn away her hands and now 
she dropped her eyes. He saw that she was playing with 
one of the buttons on her coat, and that she was waiting 
for him to speak. 

“Forgive me, dear/’ he said, “I don’t want to say any¬ 
thing to hurt you—truly, I don’t; but I had to let you 
see that it wasn’t because I haven’t been able to under¬ 
stand. . . . I’m getting confused; it’s hard to explain. 
... I mean about Donald. ...” 

Still she did not answer. Only went on twisting the 
big pearl button around and around. 

“That was the reason—always—wasn’t it, Marian? 
You did,” he took a long breath, “did care for him, didn’t 
you?” 

“Yes,” she said simply, “I did. I cared very much.” 

She was turned away from him, looking out at the 
golden shimmer of the moonlight on the quivering water. 
“I did care very much,” she repeated. 

“But now,” he said softly. 

There was silence. 

“It’s all over now, Marian. It must be over now,” 
he insisted. “You see, it’s all different.” 

“No, it doesn’t make any difference.” 

Her voice was very low, so low that he had to stoop to 
catch what she said. But even then he would not believe 
her. 

“But Marian, dear, he’s married now. You must put 
him out of your heart now; and when he is out can’t you 
find room there for me? I don’t ask much, dear, only 
just enough love to make you willing to take me. I’m 
sure I could make you love me more as time goes on.” 

She stopped him at last. 


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“Oh, Mark dear, I hate so to hurt you, but I can’t help 
it. I can’t tear him out of my heart as you want me to. 
It’s a living thing to me still, my love is. I can’t kill it, 
try as I will.” 

“I’d help you, dear.” 

But she shook her head. 

“Oh, I do know how wicked I am. I do know that 
no one can ever love me as you do. I am grateful for it, 
you do believe that, don’t you, Mark? But I couldn’t 
do you the injury of marrying you when I feel as I do. 
You wouldn’t want me to, I know you wouldn’t.” 

She looked at him and her face was so white and woe¬ 
begone, that, heartbroken as he was, Mark pitied her 
more than himself. He kissed the hands he had taken 
again in his; and then very slowly they turned and re¬ 
traced their steps to the cottage. 

Halfway home she spoke to him again. 

“Mark, how did you know?” 

No need to explain more fully what she meant. 

“I know you so well, dear.” 

“Yet you never said anything.” 

“Why should I, dear? I’d have given him to you if 
I could. I want you to have everything you desire— 
always—if it were possible. I never asked you after I 
knew.” 

They walked on in silence for some distance. 

“You’re not angry, Mark?” she said, rather timidly, 
glancing up into his face. 

“Angry! Good Lord! no. You don’t think I’m such 
a brute as that, do you?” 

“I think you’re a dear, Mark,” she said quickly; and 
for the space of a second he felt her lips brush his cheek 
as she raised herself on tiptoe. It was a small substitute 
for what he desired; nevertheless, the memory of it com- 
213 


MANY WATERS 


forted him as he walked slowly back with an aching 
heart to the rectory. 


3 

Mark had left Whitridge again. August slipped into 
September, the harvest moon had come and gone, long 
golden nights of tranquil calm, long golden days filled 
with sun and sweetness and the lingering sadness of sum¬ 
mer ended. 

But for Marian the world held other things of moment. 
She was able to give only a passing thought to Mark’s 
departure. He had, indeed, tried to see her once again 
before his departure, but it had been all but impossible on 
account of her mother’s illness. A hasty word, a brief 
good-bye cheerily spoken, her grey eyes raised for a few 
seconds to his over the cottage gate, and the momentary 
warm clasp of his hand—it was perhaps the best fare¬ 
well under the circumstances. Marian, at least, felt it 
to be so—yet it was unmistakably dreary. 

Nor had the news that Donald’s and Connie’s arrival 
was imminent affected her much more. She was too 
busy with home matters. 

Elaine was quite definitely ill. The cottage afforded 
no very adequate arrangements for a sick room, nor was 
Elaine herself a very patient sufferer. It was the first 
time Marian ever remembered her mother to be really 
ill, and the novelty of the situation, added to her own 
lack of knowledge of nursing, frightened her. She hid 
her anxiety as well as she could, however, and went 
about her added duties as nurse with zeal and devotion, 
at least. 

And Elaine was really very ill. A fall from her horse 
had done the trick. She was riding home, rather late, 
from a protracted lesson; it was dark and the horse had 
214 


MANY WATERS 

stumbled. The sidesaddle, which she would use when 
she taught hampered her; and she had strained her 
back wrenching herself from under the plunging hoofs. 

Although hurt she had mounted again and ridden home 
as though nothing had happened. It was several days 
before she confessed. A spell of cold, wet weather had 
increased the stiffness, and there had been fever. At 
last Marian had been able to induce her to go to bed. 

The fact that it had all been due to a fall—sheer care¬ 
lessness, so she declared to herself, in one who rode as 
she did, seemed to add to the irritation which she felt 
at the unusual confinement. She lay in bed and cursed 
the horse, the darkness and her own folly that had made 
her fall. She was in pain as well, and disgusted with 
her own weakness; irritable and cross. Under the stress 
of illness the indomitable courage which had defied 
the world, its slights and insults, which had faced un¬ 
flinchingly the penalties of love unwisely but prodigally 
bestowed, began to give way. She was no longer the 
haughty, imperious creature of yesterday; she was only a 
fretful, sorely tried woman, infinitely weary and despon¬ 
dent. 

To Marian fell the task of soothing and cheering, of 
tending and restraining the patient, as well as keeping the 
household together and in working order. She tried 
most earnestly to be loving and gentle, never to let the 
worn woman, tossing on her unhappy bed, guess that 
there was anything behind her eager service, yet strange 
thoughts crowded her mind as she diligently fetched and 
carried. 

Her mother had sacrificed all—so the world would have 
said—and yet had she? Or was it Ted? She some¬ 
times looked at his handsome, stupid face and wondered. 
Had her mother, perhaps, in reality sacrificed Ted? 

215 


MANY WATERS 


Thoughts complex and unruly troubled her. She knew 
that her mother was older than Ted. If her mother had 
let him alone, would he “have amounted to something,” 
as the saying is? Had she sapped his strength? Per¬ 
haps not. 

And surely love such as this was a beautiful thing—it 
ought to be so—love so intense, so all-encompassing, so 
faithful. . . . Yet was it? 

Pity coloured all her ministrations. Yet Elaine was ex¬ 
acting. Marian slaved day and night, even snatching, 
now and then, a few half hours while Ted sat with 
the patient, to ride with some of the children whose 
parents could not be trusted to remain Elaine’s clients 
if she failed them altogether. The business must not 
be allowed to suffer through her mother’s enforced ab¬ 
sence. 

On one of these days she was out on the Tonomet road, 
half a dozen children at her heels, when Connie, in a 
motor, passed her. It was the first intimation she had 
had that they were home. 

Connie drove slowly past the little cavalcade, and lean¬ 
ing out, called to her: 

“I say, what a large family!” She had caught the “I 
say” from Donald, Marian noticed. “Are they all 
yours? You’ve not been idle, anyway, have you?’’ 

Marian flushed slightly; and, with a grave little salu¬ 
tation, drew her brood together at the side of the road 
to let Connie’s flashing motor go by. 

“That’s young Mrs. Callender,” one of the children 
vouchsafed officiously. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” 

“Yes, very,” Marian answered absently. 

So they were come back at last. How would it be when 
she had to see them often, day after day? She rode 
home in a thoughtful mood. 

216 


MANY WATERS 


4 

Elaine was worse that night. A touch of delirium the 
doctor said. All the next day Marian sat in mute terror, 
holding her hand and listening to the half-coherent words 
that tumbled, one after another, from between the thin, 
parched lips. 

Her wanderings took the form of reproaches for Ted. 

“If I hadn’t gone away with you, you’d still love me!” 
she repeated over and over. 

Ted, standing at the foot of the bed, his good-natured 
face puckered with anxiety, the wide, blue eyes mysti¬ 
fied, that could not understand, tried to soothe her. 

“But I do love you,” he protested. 

Elaine laughed weakly and tossed restlessly on her 
pillow. 

“Hear him!” she shrilled. “He thinks he loves me. 
He wanted me to go away with him! And now they 
won’t speak to me on the streets ! A lot he cares! I left. 
I didn’t mind that; Sydney was awful! But I tell you 
people cut me. They won’t speak to me. And all on 
account of him. Look at him! He thinks he’s worth 
it. He says he loves me! Look at him ...” Her 
voice clattered to a stop, only to rise again in an instant 
to a wail of repoach and self-pity, telling its pitiful 
story. She had always kept such a brave front that the 
breakdown was doubly tragic. 

Marian looked suddenly at Ted. “I think you’d bet¬ 
ter go—for a little while, anyway. I’ll call you later.’’ 

He turned miserably and left the room. 

“I’ve always been faithful to her,” he told her 
anxiously before he went. 

She saw him later from the window among the dogs 
in the stable yard, playing with Toodles, Pompey’s son. 

217 


MANY WATERS 


He was teaching the young dog tricks, but she could see 
that his heart was not in it. Already the young puppy 
could walk on his hind legs, and speak for his food at 
Ted’s sharp, curt command. 

It was there that she sought him out later in the day 
when the time came to call him. Even in the midst of 
her own distress and the frightened wonder in Ted’s 
eyes, she yet had time to notice how worn and green 
the collar of his coat was, and how untidy he looked— 
and marvelled at herself as she did so. 

Elaine died just before sunset the next afternoon. 

Ted went from her back to the stable yard and me¬ 
chanically began teaching the little puppy a new trick. 
He looked rather abashed and somewhat ashamed of 
himself when Marian came there to call him in for sup¬ 
per. 

But Marian, strangely enough, understood. She was 
desperately sorry for him. With a wisdom beyond her 
years she recognised his fallibility. As he had told her, he 
had always been faithful to her mother. Yet impos¬ 
sible to keep love at white heat under the circumstances 
in which these two had lived. It was really not Ted’s 
fault. When love is satisfied, desire dwindles. He 
seemed tired and thunderstruck rather than crushed; and 
almost ashamed of the supper he was eating. His man¬ 
ner reminded her of one of the puppies after a beating. 
His eyes followed her around the room with a doglike, 
questioning appeal that tore at her heart. 

After supper she sent him out again to the stables 
on some half-necessary errand, knowing he would be hap¬ 
pier there, and went back alone to the room where Elaine 
lay. 

She looked at her mother’s face, at the clear-cut fea¬ 
tures, the nose with its high bridge, the proud, high- 
218 


MANY WATERS 

arching eyebrows and the straight determined mouth, 
and a great pity swelled the daughter’s heart. 

Elaine was meant to be a leader—always. A place 
in the forefront of life had been hers by inherent right 
—yet all she had led was a little group of unruly chil¬ 
dren ! 

And a sudden vision of the past assailed her—Elaine, 
as usual, leading a horse on which a small boy was 
perched with a whip in his hand, with which he flicked 
alternately at the horse and at his leader; Elaine in shoes 
dull with tramping through the dust, tired, courageous, 
“game”! She had put a brave face before the world; 
yet, after all, she had cared! 

That night, Ted, in a burst of sudden feeling, put his 
arm about her shoulders. The gesture was awkward, 
but sincere. 

“Never mind, little girl/’ he said, “don’t feel badly. 
I’ll take care of you!” 

She smiled wanly. Poor Ted! She knew that it had 
always been her mother who took care of him; but she 
did not undeceive him. And when she rose in the middle 
of the night and stole to her mother’s door, to find him 
sitting there, patiently, beside the body, she forgave him 
everything. 

4 

The funeral was a thing of nightmare unreality. 

After it she walked down on the sands. Ted was busy 
with the horses. She would be alone here. 

The wind blew a shrill gale along the deserted beach. 
The sea was breaking high up. She saw the scattering 
fragments of foam, white in the wind, like puffballs 
dancing up the beach, and far out on the horizon a ship 
flying before the storm. 


219 


MANY WATERS 


The sea broke at her feet in a thousand flashes of 
foam and the wind tore at her garments with joyous 
abandon, but her thoughts were heavy and sodden. They 
stirred in her heart like alien memories creeping home to 
rest. 

There was Ted; she thought of him first. She saw 
him vainly trying to kindle a spark from the burnt-out 
embers of a dead fire. It was true that he had loved her 
mother, that he would miss her horribly—as one misses 
a habit—but not with the soul-searing torture of fresh 
love parted. They had burnt themselves out; had they 
been foolish, those two? Better a fresh grief? Would 
love have lasted if they had parted? Were Elaine’s dy¬ 
ing words true: “If I hadn’t run away with you, you’d 
still love me!”? 

Or was it only time that counted ? And it didn’t make 
any difference what you did—time would wipe out the 
deepest grief, still the strongest love! 

The dry sands, stirred by the wind, blew against her 
lips like the dry sands of life. And her thoughts turned 
from her mother and Ted to her own affairs—and 
Donald. 

And suddenly she realised that the bitterness of her 
feeling was gone. What did it matter, after all ? What 
did it matter, now that her mother was dead? The new 
grief had robbed the old of its poignancy. It seemed a 
little thing now—that Donald should have failed her. 
She told herself that her love for him had been selfish. 
There was nothing selfish in her love for her mother. 
One couldn’t even honestly have said that she was a good 
mother; yet beside the grief Marian experienced now, 
the other, the old sorrow, faded into insignificance. It 
seemed small and petty now. She told herself that it was 
ecstasy compared with this. Doubtless she exaggerated; 
220 


MANY WATERS 


but she knew that now she could think of Connie and 
Donald living up there at the Hall without bitterness, 
There would never be any reproach—only a great weari¬ 
ness and sadness. 

She went home and started to put away her mother’s 
things. It went well enough until she opened a closet 
door and saw the row of shoes, heavy and rough for the 
great amount of walking she did, crumpled and worn. 
It struck Marian, suddenly, what infinitely pathetic 
things shoes were without their owners. And about 
these there was something patient and uncomplaining, 
something that looked brave and of a stout heart, so piti¬ 
fully in keeping with her mother’s character, that broke 
the bonds of silence and sent her suddenly to her knees 
beside the empty bed to cry: “Oh, mother! mother! 
mother!” to the unanswering walls. 


t 


PART TWO 





CHAPTER XIV 


i 

C ONNIE CALLENDER sat at her desk, an ex¬ 
quisite affair of teak wood and lacquer, in the 
morning room at the Hall. It was in the second 
year of her marriage. Connie had not changed materially 
except perhaps an added loveliness; a more mature soft¬ 
ness and a deeper luster in the dark, expressive eyes, such 
as comes to women secure in the protecting mantle of 
married love. 

She sat a bit listlessly, her white, well-rounded arm 
drooping negligently over the back of her chair, the other 
elbow resting on the open desk before her, the quill pen 
poised between her fingers, delicately touching the small, 
red, parted lips in thoughtful preoccupation. 

On the couch at her side, Captain Kenneth Disbrow, 
idly puffing a cigarette, lay at full length and watched 
her, his bold, handsome eyes scanning her face with 
frank admiration, one hand lost in the cushions back of 
his head. 

He was one of a house party of eight at present being 
entertained at the Hall. He was a newcomer in their cir¬ 
cle, Connie having met him only once or twice at dinner in 
town. But he had engaging manners, good connections, 
and a reputation for being something of a ladies’ man, all 
admirable qualifications for what Connie wanted just then 
—an extra man to even the number of guests. So he 
had been included in the party. She had invited him a 
225 


MANY WATERS 


trifle diffidently and he had accepted with enthusiasm. 
So far he had proved an admirable guest, ready for any 
entertainment offered and not too devoted to any one 
member of the party—two qualities which epitomise the 
perfect guest. 

If he could be said to have shown a preference for the 
society of any particular member of the party, it was for 
Connie’s own. A hostess can always forgive a slight 
lapse in this direction. 

To-day, as had happened several times before, they 
were alone. Perhaps that was why young Disbrow let 
his glance rest with such admiring directness on his 
hostess’s face. Connie was faintly conscious of the look 
even through her preoccupation. The presence of this 
man often gave her a queer little thrill, quite unique, as 
if challenging her ever perfect poise, that at the same 
time vaguely disturbed and yet pleased her. She won¬ 
dered just what it meant and found herself delighted to 
wonder. 

Up to the present moment Connie had not been taking 
a great deal of interest in the conversation. They had 
been discussing the European War then in progress. Their 
last remarks were enigmatical: 

“If we ever should get into it. . . 

“Oh, but we won’t, you know. It’s really not our af¬ 
fair. If we’d been going to, we’d have done it long 
since.” 

“It seems a pity to stay out, though.” 

“You’d like us to be involved?” 

“Rather! It’s such a glorious opportunity; I wish we 
would.” 

“Opportunity for what?” 

“Oh, to show ourselves off. Let them see what we can 
do.” 


226 


MANY WATERS 


He looked at her coolly, a faint, slightly mocking 
smile played on his lips. He spoke in an amused voice: 

“I’m a soldier. ...” 

“I know. You’d have to go?” 

“Of course.” 

“And—and shouldn’t you like to?’ 

He answered her query with another. 

“Would your husband go?” 

“Oh, I’m quite sure he would,” Connie replied glibly. 
“Who wouldn’t!” 

“I wouldn’t.” 

Connie lifted her eyes in wide surprise. “You 
wouldn’t?” she repeated. 

“That is, not if your husband went.” 

Connie looked back at the desk. She knew quite well 
what Disbrow meant, but she wanted to prolong the 
interesting moment. 

“I didn’t know you disliked Donald so much,” she re¬ 
marked demurely. “Still, even so, I should think, given 
the whole of France, you might be able to endure it.” 

Kenneth Disbrow broke in on her remarks with a 
laugh slightly disagreeable to Connie’s ears: 

“On the contrary, I like Callender.” 

“Then why . . . ?” 

“But not so well as I like you.” 

Connie smiled and managed a discreet little blush. 

“Well?” 

“Did you mean you wouldn’t go if you were my 
husband ?” 

Captain Disbrow was entranced by her innocency— 
or pretended he was. 

“No, that wasn’t what I meant. I meant what I said; 
if your husband went to war, Pd make it a point to stay 
home.” 

227 


MANY WATERS 


“But why?” 

“To take care of you, little silly!” 

Connie rewarded him with one of her most engaging 
smiles. 

“Do you think we might get into it even now?” she 
asked, with a playful eagerness that made him laugh. 

“I’m afraid there’s very little chance. We should have 
done it before if we’d been going to. When the Lusi¬ 
tania was sunk, for instance; that was the time. I 
shouldn’t have been surprised if we’d gone in then.” 
Disbrow was getting quite earnest. 

“No-o,’’ Connie was somewhat displeased to observe 
the conversation taking a diplomatic turn. She hated or¬ 
dinary conversation. It was amazing how much more 
bright and interesting she could be when the discussion 
centred on herself. Egotism lighted up her face then 
and made her look prettier as well. 

“As it is we’ve rather let the thing slip past us.’’ 

“Yes.” 

Connie turned back to the papers on the desk before her. 
There was silence in the room for a time. Disbrow lit 
another cigarette and resettled himself among the cushions. 
The faintest of little puckers showed between Connie’s 
eyebrows as she pored over the neatly written list be¬ 
fore her. Once or twice she said over a name, half to 
herself. 

“It’s hard to know just whom to invite,” she remarked 
at last aloud. 

Disbrow considered this gravely. 

“It ought to be easy enough in a town the size of 
Thornton. There must be only a limited number of 
people you can invite.” 

“Yes, of course, that’s so. But there are questions. 
. . . It’s a bore having to include Donald’s father. I 
228 


MANY WATERS 


don’t see why he had to drop down on us as early as this. 
Next week would have been so much better. And the 
Carrolls—I did hope they’d decline!” 

“Aren’t they desirable ?” 

“He is. She’s a blank. I’m asking him to please 
Maisie Littell; she’s rather gone on him. But of course 
I had to include his wife.” 

“Let’s put a curse on her then. Maybe she’ll be stricken 
down with ptomaine or something deadly, just before 
the dinner, and let him come alone.” 

“Never! You don’t know her. She’s as jealous as a 
cat. Besides, I’ve an extra man already.’’ 

“That’s bad. Can’t you think of another girl?” . 

Connie reflected. 

“There’s a girl down in the village,” she said slowly, 
“that Donald used to be rather sweet on.” 

“Really? How interesting.” 

“Oh, I don’t know about that. It wasn’t anything 
serious.’’ 

“A—er—lady?” 

“Oh, quite.” 

“Attractive ?” 

“Ye-es. I think most people would think so. Rather 
too serious-minded; but her mother ran away with a 
lover and they all lived together in the village here, to the 
great horror of the people around. Not particularly thrill¬ 
ing—the story—but enough to give the girl a somewhat 
romantic background. The mother died and the man 
left, but the girl’s still there.” 

Kenneth Disbrow drew a long puff on his cigarette. 

“Tell me about her,” he said. 

“Oh, there’s nothing much to tell beyond that,” said 
Connie. “The girl acted rather foolishly people thought, 
just at first, after her mother’s death. She insisted that 
229 


MANY WATERS 


the man—Chamberlayne his name was—should stay on 
there at the cottage with her if he wished to. People 
went to her and talked about the conventions—I know 
Mrs. Wetherell, the minister’s wife here, did—but it was 
rather difficult when they couldn’t very well mention what 
he had been to her mother. There’s no doubt the girl 
knew, but she was as obstinate as a pig about it. I 
rather admired her myself for the stand she took. 

“But in the end some one prevailed on the man to 
leave. Possibly he wanted to, anyway. I heard he said 
he couldn’t stay after what had happened. They sold the 
horses—the mother had given riding lessons for a living 
and the man helped her. Then a convenient aunt was 
found to come and live in Whitridge, so everything was 
arranged quite respectably. She—the girl, that is—still 
lives in the old house and rides a good deal. She kept 
her own horse. It’s a superlatively conventional house¬ 
hold from all I hear. So that’s the story.” 

“Indeed!” Captain Disbrow flicked an ash from the 
end of his cigarette as he watched Connie attentively. 
“Any money?” he inquired. 

“No. No money. At least, I never heard of there 
being any. In fact, I believe they had rather hard scratch¬ 
ing in the mother’s lifetime. At least, that’s the way I 
remember it when I used to visit here and see them years 
ago, when Donald had her up here.” 

“Well, if she’s still here why not have her up again?” 

Connie hesitated. Disbrow leaned forward and smiled 
into her face. 

“Not jealous?” 

“Certainly not!” Connie repudiated the accusation. “I 
was only thinking if it would do. You see she’s a little 
—a little—” 

“Gauche?” 


230 


MANY WATERS 


“No, not that.” 

“What, then?” 

“Well,” Connie admitted candidly. “You see, I once 
did her rather a mean turn.” 

“In connection with Donald ?’ ? 

“How did you know?” 

“One could guess. And granted, isn’t that all the 
better reason to have her up?” 

“I wonder,” said Connie deliberately, “if a dinner 
party would make it up to her?” 

Disbrow stared at her. Connie was not looking at 
him—she was occupied in studying her list, so she did 
not see the expression on his face, bold, rather imperti¬ 
nent and faintly ironical. As many times before, he was 
mentally weighing her, wondering; but with a more cer¬ 
tain knowledge than he had before possessed. There 
was something about Connie that made men wonder, 
vaguely, wishfully. ... A quality in her which subtly 
disturbed them, threatened their peace of mind, roused 
their curiosity and set them dreaming of dim remote po¬ 
tentialities. . . . Something questionable, unexplainable. 
If . . . 

Connie rose abruptly from her desk. 

“All right,” she said briskly, “I’ll ask her, I’ll ring 
her up on the telephone; or perhaps, on second thoughts, 
it would be better to write a note. She might refuse if 
I took her by surprise. She’s rather shy.’’ 

“Oh, don’t let her do that. I confess you’ve made me 
quite curious about her already.” 

Connie gave him a brief glance. 

“I hope you won’t be disappointed. If she comes I’ll 
make it a point to seat her next to you.” 

Disbrow felt the somewhat frigid contact of her 
words. 


231 


MANY WATERS 


“And where do I sit with reference to you? That’s 
more important.” 

“Does it matter?” Connie flashed back. 

“You’ve no heart!*’ 

Connie laughed and coloured bewitchingly. 

“Don’t you think we’ve talked enough nonsense for to¬ 
day?” she asked reprovingly; and trailed with majestic 
dignity from the room. 


2 

Connie’s dinner was a great success. Twenty-two 
people in all, the extra guests culled from the socially 
eligible of Thornton and its environs. There is no finer 
snob on earth than your small-city “best people.” To 
say culled is perhaps to use a misleading word. They 
were the elect, the representative, the society of the place. 
And among them Marian Pritchard had a place. 

None grudged her that place. It was hers by right of 
conquest. Like Connie she had changed little; was not 
very different in looks from the Marian Pritchard of old 
days; but she had grown from a shy, sensitive schoolgirl 
into a tall, beautiful woman. Her manner impressed 
people as being assured. It was not. Underneath, if the 
truth were told, she was still rather shy; but there was a 
quiet, dignified poise, a serene, unhurried content about 
her, that made them, in the midst of the rush and worry 
of life, feel a sort of calm in her presence, like the touch 
of a cool hand upon a fevered brow. 

There was no lure of the coquette; men would not rush 
madly to fall in love with her; but they liked to be with 
her, enjoying, without quite sensing what they enjoyed, 
the quiet peace of her presence, the calm, intellectual and 
physical, of her society. Some few people, women mostly, 
thought her cold; and she was cold, with that strange 
232 


MANY WATERS 


potentiality of unguessed fires hidden deep within her, 
so deep that she herself had scarcely suspected their ex¬ 
istence. Calm and untroubled she waited, like Brunhilde 
on her rock, the releasing kiss of a Siegfried who had 
tarried. 

To-night she had been glad to go to Connie's. First 
of all she had all the country girl’s innocent joy in a 
“party,” far too infrequent an event in her rather nar¬ 
row life; and she liked quite simply and unaffectedly to 
be with her old friends. 

Everything was safe and secure now. Where once 
she had come in ignominy, now she came in at least 
a semblance of glory. Mark Wetherell had brought her, 
driving her up the long hill to the Hall in his little Ford 
runabout. 

Mark was studying law in Judge Phillips’s office in 
Thornton now. He worked hard, early and late, seek¬ 
ing always by dint of studious labour to justify that be¬ 
lief in himself which had made his chosen course possible 
to him. And he was succeeding; men spoke well of him. 
His feet were already on the highway of achievement. 

Mark, perhaps more than the others, had changed. His 
development, slower than that of his companions, had 
achieved a result more definite. He was quiet, reserved, 
and, in spite of the quick, winning smile, rather grave 
and silent, not with the silence of the taciturn or the 
timid, but with the quiet of a thoughtful man, a specula¬ 
tive absorption evidencing a critical mind. That innate 
purity, so prominent a characteristic of his father, had 
descended to him in an almost quixotic reverence for 
women. He possessed an unquestioning belief in the 
goodness of all women which only the most obvious ex¬ 
hibition of frailty could shatter. 

Indeed, a certain fine asceticism marked all his associa- 
233 


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tions with the opposite sex; there was something almost 
monastic in his manner of life. It showed, perhaps, a 
little in the controlled, tight-lipped mouth and forward 
thrust of the jaw, in the steady blue eyes with their level 
brows—a strong face, one that gave a sense of stability 
and integrity. Yet it was not stern, rather, it showed, in 
spite of its resolute qualities, a certain rare spirituality; 
for there was present in its clear-cut features that look, 
remote, faintly mystical, which the faces of dreamers 
always bear. One guessed at once that he was a good 
man. 

Marian was conscious of these qualities in Mark with¬ 
out ever having actually analysed them. So often we 
fail to appreciate the virtues of those near at hand. Pro¬ 
pinquity blinds us just as distance enhances the subject. 
For years Marian had taken Mark and Mark’s devotion 
as a matter of course. She loved him in the same old, 
companionable way, was glad of him and fond of him, 
just as she had always been. She would not have recog¬ 
nised her life without Mark’s cheery and comforting in¬ 
fluence on it. 

She sat to-night between him and Captain Disbrow 
whom she had met for the first time. And she was quite 
content. Mark was obviously proud of her. He couldn’t 
take his eyes from her. To him she was the most beauti¬ 
ful thing alive; and to other eyes, even the least apprecia¬ 
tive, she was lovely to look upon, with her pale gold hair 
piled high on her head, with her clear grey eyes and firm 
chin and the vivid glowing colour in her cheeks. Connie 
thought spitefully, “IPs paint.” Then she almost laughed 
at herself, for of course she knew it wasn’t. The girl 
always had it. To-night the excitement had increased it 
a bit, that was all. No need to be such a cat. 

Connie’s own colour was radiant. She could bear 
234 


MANY WATERS 


comparison with any one at the table. She knew it well, 
and mentally reminded herself of the fact to revive her 
good nature. But a chance remark of Kenneth Dis- 
brow’s overhead in the hall before they sat down to 
dinner, had most unreasonably annoyed her. It could 
scarcely be called a remark, it was a mere ejaculation. 
“By George!” Disbrow had said, as he stood below and 
watched Marian descending the staircase, and again, “By 
George!” with his eyes fixed upon her. Immediately 
afterward they had been introduced. 

Throughout dinner Captain Disbrow paid Marian 
marked attention. She herself was not unduly conscious 
of it, indeed, scarcely noticed it. But Connie did and 
several of the others. Disbrow quite forgot his neigh¬ 
bour on the other side. 

After dinner he drew Connie aside. Maisie Littell was 
within hearing. 

“Why didn’t you tell me she was a blonde?” 

Connie turned in mute appeal to Maisie, and Maisie 
laughed. 

“Oh, you men! All one has to say to you is ‘blonde/ 
or ‘widow/ and you go crazy! I’ve never known it to 
fail.” 

Disbrow laughed, but Connie frowned. 

“Didn’t I tell you?” she asked carelessly. “I thought 
I had told you everything there was to tell about her this 
afternoon. I know you asked enough questions. I had 
an idea we’d quite exhausted the subject. However, if 
there are any further points that I can put you wise on, 
do let me know. This sudden interest of yours is most 
intriguing!” And she moved away with haughty in¬ 
difference. 

Maisie shrugged and laughed. 

“You’re not a very tactful man,” she suggested play- 
235 


MANY WATERS 


fully to Disbrow. But Disbrow had ideas of his own on 
that subject which he didn’t feel it necessary to impart 
to the voluble Maisie. 

“But that girl’s a beauty!” he said, with his eyes on 
Marian. 

“She is,” agreed Maisie honestly, “she’s a peach!” 

Disbrow, with a muttered apology, made his way over 
to Marian’s side. Throughout the remainder of the eve¬ 
ning he never left it. He saw her as far as the drive and 
helped her into Mark’s car when the time came for them 
to leave. They were the last to go because Mark had 
had some trouble starting the motor. 

It hadn’t been working well of late, he explained; and 
there was a good deal of laughter and merriment over 
the little machine. In the end Donald volunteered to go 
with them as far as Marian’s cottage in case of trouble. 
He’d enjoy the walk back, he said; and beyond there 
Mark could shift for himself. 

3 

Disbrow went back into the house to tell Connie, who 
was waiting in the drawing-room. The other guests had 
apparently retired. 

He explained the situation briefly. “Donald said to 
tell you not to wait up for him,” he added. “He won’t 
be gone very long.” 

“Oh, I’ll wait,” said Connie. She was playing with 
the fringe of the Persian rug thrown over the large 
piano. Against the shiny black of the ebony piano case 
the flowing draperies of her chiffon-and-lace dinner gown 
fluttered transparent. The dress was yellow, a colour 
peculiarly becoming to her, setting off her rich brunette 
beauty most effectively. She was quite aware that she 
was looking well to-night, but she wanted to hear Dis- 
236 


MANY WATERS 


brow say so. She was greedy for his compliments. Since 
he did not give them at once she grumbled a little. 

“I don’t see why Donald had to go with them way down 
there. It’s a long walk back. And at such an hour! 
Mark ought to be able to run a simple car like that with¬ 
out him. He knows a lot more about it than Donald, 
anyway. It will be awfully late by the time he gets back.” 

“Why don’t you go to bed!” Disbrow suggested coolly. 
He had lit a cigarette and was preparing to seat himself in 
his favourite chair. He did not appear particularly in¬ 
terested in his hostess at this moment. 

“Because I don’t want to,” Connie answered his ques¬ 
tion somewhat crossly. 

Disbrow, instead of sitting down, walked over to the 
fireplace and flicked the match into the grate. He was 
watching Connie with a faintly amused expression. 

“Ah! a little jealous still?” 

Connie turned on him angrily. “You’re rude!” she 
flared. 

“Sorry!” 

Disbrow continued to puff his cigarette calmly. Connie 
studied him with a certain little pucker of dissatisfaction 
between her brows—almost of anxiety. His attitude of 
aloof superiority worried her faintly. She didn’t under¬ 
stand this new mood of his. Before, he had been her 
slave; but to-night their positions appeared somehow to 
have been changed. Could it have been the mere meeting 
with Marian that had brought this about? Connie bit her 
lips with annoyance, and continued to watch Disbrow who 
appeared unconscious of her scrutiny. 

Connie drew a long breath and gathered her resources 
together. To be ousted by Marian was unendurable—it 
was absurd! Wisdom cautioned her to go to her room 
at once; to leave this impertinent and rebellious young 
237 


MANY WATERS 


man to recover from such folly by himself—a night’s 
reflection would doubtless do the trick. And she might 
then, without loss of dignity, ignore his present lapse. 
Yet something tempted her to stay. Something not un¬ 
connected with Kenneth Disbrow’s bold blue eyes and 
the square set of his shoulders; to tarry yet a little with 
him, to match her powers of coquetry against his arro¬ 
gance. She told herself that she had always loved danger, 
and, secretly, she wanted to discover if there was danger 
here. 

“Why should you fancy I was afraid of anything be¬ 
tween Donald and little Marian Pritchard?” she asked 
lightly. “You yourself paid her more attention than any 
one to-night. I thought you quite monopolised her.” 

Captain Disbrow looked innocently surprised. “I!” 
he murmured. “I! You know that isn’t so. How 
could I look at any one else when you were there?” 

For once his flattery was distasteful to Connie; sounded 
unutterably crude; wanting in taste. She gave an im¬ 
patient shake of her head. 

“Don’t be a fool!” she said shortly. 

Kenneth Disbrow did not smile. Instead, he walked 
over to where she was standing and put his two hands 
on her shoulders. 

“Tell me honestly, whose attentions to Miss Pritchard 
were you angriest at, Donald’s or mine?” 

The effrontery of the query ought to have silenced 
Connie. She looked up at him and for an instant a 
strange, potent fear thrilled her. A thousand questions 
and vague imaginings darted through her brain, just as, a 
short time previously, a thousand doubts had disturbed 
him. But he had determined to risk it. 

Connie hesitated. They were standing close together. 
Connie told herself that she must make some answer, 
238 


MANY WATERS 


say something to make him take that keen, riveting gaze 
from her face, and the heavy hands from her shoulders. 
And, oddly, she felt almost powerless to do so. 

But at that moment an interruption occurred. It came 
in the person of Colonel Callender who walked unex¬ 
pectedly into the room. 

Connie and Disbrow stepped apart. The former 
glanced with thinly veiled scorn at her father-in-law. He 
had apparently not seen. 

Colonel Callender shuffled over to the table in search 
of a book he wanted. He was not, in reality, a very old 
man, but he had aged terribly since his wife’s death. His 
old blustering boyishness hung upon him still, but sadly 
out of character, fitting him ill, like a coat grown too 
large for its wearer. 

He came into the room with a muttered joke on the 
inability of an old man to remember anything for two 
minutes at a time; and Connie and Disbrow drew away 
from each other. His errand there was soon finished. 
He left almost immediately, but for the two remaining the 
spell was broken. 

With a brief good night and leaving Disbrow’s ques¬ 
tion still unanswered, Connie slipped upstairs and with¬ 
out looking back entered her bedroom. 

Odious old man! she thought, as she stood before her 
mirror letting her hair fall in heavy masses about her 
lovely shoulders. Odious old man! She did not attempt 
to disguise her feelings towards her father-in-law. She 
felt him something of a burden on her hands, even though 
he visited them seldom. Donald was so ridiculously so¬ 
licitous about him, always felt so frightfully responsible. 
It was absurd! 

Connie stared at herself in the mirror and half uncon¬ 
sciously tried the effect of a frown. She was sure she 
239 


MANY WATERS 


hated the old man for his interference with her plans 
to-night, and yet subconsciously she knew that the inter¬ 
ruption had come as a bit of a relief. There had been 
something a trifle too assured in Disbrow’s manner, too 
much understanding in his eyes. For once in her life 
Connie had been actually at a loss for a response. 

No doubt she would have thought of something clever 
and reproving to say—if she had been given a chance 
and the old man hadn’t come in. As it was, that did away 
with the necessity. And she had all the long night to 
arrange a suitable attitude with which to greet Disbrow 
the following day. 

When Donald came to his room a little later she greeted 
him coldly, almost resentfully, as if her annoyance to¬ 
night had been due to his behaviour, as if he were re¬ 
sponsible for her inward dissatisfaction. 

4 

Connie and Donald argued the matter out—or rather, 
Connie argued and Donald, rather good-naturedly, lis¬ 
tened. She said that Marian had behaved in a disgrace¬ 
ful manner. Neither Donald’s ridicule nor her own fun¬ 
damental good sense would move her from this attitude. 
She had, Connie said, deliberately tried to make up to 
Kenneth Disbrow, doubtless because she knew he had 
money. It was no use Donald’s saying the girl was abso¬ 
lutely unworldly and all that rot! She had been known 
to set her cap for even richer men than Kenneth and 
failed. 

Donald ignored the allusion. He left her at last, more 
or less disgusted and impatient, and Connie went over it 
all again by herself. 

She had asked Marian to her dinner party out of sheer 
good nature—so she told herself. She had wanted the 
240 


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girl to enjoy herself, obviously. She convinced herself 
that she had worried before the event lest Marian 
shouldn’t have a good time. But she hadn’t wanted her to 
be the central figure of the evening. Connie liked every¬ 
thing in moderation. Having worried so much about 
Marian—such was her version—it was naturally annoy¬ 
ing to find her upon first appearance so universally ad¬ 
mired. Of course men were like sheep in these matters, 
Connie had often noticed that; nevertheless, it was gall¬ 
ing. 

There was Mark Wetherell. She didn’t grudge Marian 
him. He was attractive enough, of course, but the ob¬ 
viousness of his devotion to Marian had made it ap¬ 
parent for a long time. 

But Donald again! And now Kenneth! Connie had 
begun to look on Disbrow as her own property. At the 
same time she was wise enough to know that her hold on 
him was considerably slighter than that which marriage 
gave her—hence her disquietude. Connie was a natural 
flirt. It came to her as easily as breathing. Impossible 
for her to meet a man without desiring, however uncon¬ 
sciously, to subdue him, to reduce him to a state of vas¬ 
salage and persistently offered homage. And hitherto it 
had invariably been her experience that she could do this 
when she tried. 

But in the case of Kenneth Disbrow her desire had been 
more acute; he interested her to a greater degree than 
was usual. Connie felt instinctively that there was some¬ 
thing about him, something compelling, conquering, a 
touch of the cave-man element in his nature to which hers 
responded inevitably. She had rather gloried in the still 
indefinite prospect of a future problematical surrender. 
Now to have Marian step in and so frankly make a con¬ 
quest annoyed her immeasurably. 

241 


MANY WATERS 


But it doubled her regard for Disbrow and her deter¬ 
mination to bring him to her feet. Connie was one of 
those persons in whom minor jealousies and the idea of 
competition are strongly influential factors. 

She decided to punish Disbrow for his defection by 
exhibiting towards him a coldness quite at variance with 
her usual demeanour. She gave him no opportunity even 
to speak with her alone. Laughing good-naturedly, but 
without relaxing her determination, she avoided his ob¬ 
vious efforts to capture her personal society. It was easy 
enough in that houseful of guests always to have one or 
another at her side, just as it had been simple enough be¬ 
fore for her to arrange an occasional tete-a-tete with him 
when she so desired. Connie was clever at such a game ; 
she had had much practice with the moods of men. Ken¬ 
neth Disbrow smiled and waited. 

5 

On the afternoon following the dinner party at the 
Hall, Donald went down to the village. Stopping at the 
cottage gate on his way past, he found Marian in the 
front garden, clad in a large all-over apron of bright 
blue gingham. She was weeding the flower beds that 
ran along the fence, her back bent seriously over her 
work. 

He called to her and she looked up, waved a friendly 
hand and then crossed to the gate to speak to him, pull¬ 
ing off the heavy garden gloves from her hands as she 
came. 

She had on a large hat that cast a deep shadow over 
her grey eyes and half covered the knot of fair hair 
coiled loosely in her neck. 

Donald leaned on the fence and Marian stood on the 
other side, one hand holding the gloves and the trowel 
242 


MANY WATERS 


with which she had been digging, the other smoothing 
the dirt from the blue apron. There was a faint colour 
in her cheeks that appeared to deepen the violet of her 
eyes, set in their rings of fainter violet. The shadow of 
the big hat reached as far as her firmly cut chin with 
its delicate cleft. 

Donald absorbed her still unconscious beauty with his 
eyes. He felt in a lazy mood. It would be pleasant to 
stop here, leaning against the old picket fence, for an in¬ 
definite period, if only she would stand there, too, and 
talk to him. 

“What are you growing?” he asked; not because he 
cared about knowing, but because he wanted to see the 
curved red lips open and to catch a glimpse of the white, 
square, little teeth within. 

“Oh, nothing,” she replied. “Only the same old lilies 
and iris and delphinium that have grown here for genera¬ 
tions. The bloom’s mostly over for this year, though. 
I’ve only the annuals, the calendulas and zinias to count 
on now. But the weeds start up so quickly if you let 
things slide at all.” 

She raised the hand that held the old brown glove, and 
with the bare, bent wrist pushed aside a lock of the fair 
hair that was straggling into her eyes. The sun glinted 
for an instant on the smooth white cheek as she tilted her 
head. 

“Won’t you come in?” she asked, a trifle doubtfully. 
“We can sit on the porch. I don’t have to do this, you 
know.” But he shook his head. 

“Just on my way down to the village. I’d like to stop 
but I’ve an errand I must do. Seen anything of Danny 
Devine lately? I suppose he’s still at work, isn’t he? 
I’ve a job I want him to do for me.” 

“He went past here last evening at about five. He’s 
243 


MANY WATERS 


not working much now. He’s rather old and he’s been 
ailing the last few months. But I dare say he might be 
able to do something. Especially for you.” 

How grave and serious she was! Donald looked at 
her and saw again the child he had known so long— 
known and yet not known, for even now she was a riddle 
to him. And yet he would not change her. She was as 
she had always been, a simple-hearted, innocent child. He 
saw her, pure and lovely, untouched by the world, keeping 
still the wistful dreams of girlhood, beautiful in soul as 
well as body. 

A little sad though. He looked at her and thought, 
“Doesn’t any one ever make her laugh?” He cast about 
in his mind for the latest funny story. What was that 
one Disbrow had got off last evening? 

But at that moment Mark Wetherell came up the road 
and joined them. 

“Hello, Donald,” he said casually. There was a faint 
coldness in the greeting. 

The conversation became general; and after a few min¬ 
utes Donald left them to pursue his errand in Whitridge. 

“Did you have a pleasant call?” Connie asked later in 
the day when he mentioned having stopped at the cot¬ 
tage. 

“Oh, I was only there a few minutes,” Donald an¬ 
swered carelessly. “Mark Wetherell came up so I left.” 

Connie smiled disagreeably. 

“Well, you really couldn’t expect to cut him out, you 
know.” 

Donald turned sharply. “Why? Is Wetherell specially 
favoured?” 

“Are you blind?” 

“Well, you can’t blame him.” 

Connie was tapping her foot gently on the floor. She 
244 


MANY WATERS 


was not really angry and she would probably have ignored 
Donald’s last remark had he not added: 

‘‘I thought Disbrow took the count, too, the other night. 
I never saw a chap harder hit on short notice. I shouldn’t 
have been surprised to find him at the cottage to-day 
rather than Mark.” 

Connie crumpled the fresh handkerchief in her hand 
into a hard round ball. She whirled upon Donald in¬ 
dignantly, but controlled her voice admirably. 

“If there had been any chance of Kenneth’s going 
there,” she said lightly, “you may depend upon it, Mark 
Wetherell would have been told to keep away.” 

Donald frowned. 

“That’s rather ill-natured under the circumstances. 
Just what do you mean?” 

She shrugged. “Mark hasn’t a great deal of money. 
It should be simple enough for Kenneth to displace him 
if he wished.” 

“Money!’* Donald repeated. “What has money to do 
with it?” 

“Oh, it usually does count with girls like that, you 
know.” 

He laughed shortly. 

“That’s absurd! Marian’s the last girl in the world to 
be influenced by that. She’d care as little whether a man 
had a million as a penny. She’s as far above such con¬ 
siderations as any one I know.” 

Now Connie, as a rule, kept her head better than most 
women, but for some obscure reason this championship 
of Marian infuriated her. She shrugged her shoulders 
again and remarked: 

“In the long run money talks. You always pretend to 
know so much about the world, yet you’re as simple as a 
child. Take this little village girl, for instance. I sup- 
245 


MANY WATERS 


i 

pose nothing would induce you to believe that Mark 
Wetherell is keeping her.” 

Donald stared at her. “Good Lord!” he gasped. And 
for a few minutes he felt for her a positive revulsion, the 
natural revulsion which good breeding feels when brought 
face to face with vulgarity. He had never noticed this 
trait in Connie before. His own perfect good taste had 
blinded him. He was, in fact, too well bred to observe 
that Connie was not. Only a flagrant breach such as this 
could bring home to him the absence in Connie of those 
little niceties of instinct which make true breeding more 
an attitude of mind than a mere question of manners. 

“For I don’t suppose he means to marry her,” Connie 
added, while he still stood with mouth agape. 

Donald pulled himself together suddenly. 

“Connie,” he said, “you can’t mean what you’re say¬ 
ing. Or if you do you ought to be ashamed to repeat 
anything so improper. I hope you haven’t mentioned 
this to any one else—but I know you haven’t. You’ve 
too much good sense to believe it, anyway.” 

But Connie would not retract. “You must admit I 
generally know what’s going on,” she said. “And as for 
the impropriety, of course you men always pretend to 
think every one so pure! Your wives mustn’t ever dream 
of saying such a thing aloud!” 

“You mistake me,’’ Donald replied deliberately. “I 
was thinking of Marian when I spoke; not of you.” 

“Oh!” said Connie briefly, somewhat taken aback. 

Donald laughed. 

“And as for marrying her, well, I very nearly mar¬ 
ried her myself, if you want to know.” 

Connie bit her lip. “Why didn’t you?” 

Donald decided all at once that there must not be a 
quarrel. He leaned over and kissed her neck lightly. 

246 


MANY WATERS 


'‘You know why.” 

But Connie pulled away. 

“I suppose you didn’t find it necessary either.” 

He frowned, and turned to leave the room. 

‘Til come back when you’re in a more normal mood. 
I won’t listen to you saying such things. You can’t be 
serious and it’s in rotten taste, anyway. You’ll have to 
learn to control yourself.” 

He went out, slamming the door behind him. 

6 

Donald Callender was not one to let any annoyance, 
either great or small, trouble him for very long. Never¬ 
theless, he thought more than once during the succeed¬ 
ing evening of what Connie had told him. Not that he 
gave any credence to the statement. He put it down for 
what it was—a moment’s spitefulness on Connie’s part. 
Yet the more he thought of what Connie had said the 
angrier he became. He seemed to see her for the first 
time in a new light. 

Not that he condemned her unduly. He only realised 
what he had not before, that in nature there are “sec¬ 
onds,” just as there are in manufacture. Inevitably he 
contrasted Connie’s willfull flashes of petulance with 
Marian’s quiet charm. He saw her again before him, 
and in her clear grey eyes with their level brows, an “un¬ 
clouded noon of peace.” 

The remembrance made him less cordial to Connie 
than he might have been when she came to him in his 
study early the next day. He was busy over some house¬ 
hold papers and Connie’s interruption was untimely. 

She hovered uncertainly in the doorway with a some¬ 
what ill-concealed effort to appear at ease and intimately 
friendly. 


247 


MANY WATERS 

“Oh, Donny, I’ve found that receipt we were looking 
for from Weston about the Thornton house,” she said 
when she saw what he was about. 

He looked up and nodded. “Oh, thanks.” 

“I—I’ll bring it to you.” 

“Right-o.” 

“Later,” added Connie. “I wanted to speak to you 
about something else now.” 

“Oh—er—yes?” 

“Do you think/’ said Connie, with inspiration, “that 
Macklin is a really good gardener? I’m wondering. I’ve 
never seen the place look worse. I thought perhaps you 
might have noticed. Do you think you could speak to 
him?” 

“No,” said Donald, “I don’t. I don’t care a hang about 
it anyway, and I haven’t noticed anything wrong with 
the flowers. But you may speak to him if you like. I 
leave all that sort of thing to you. He’s been here a good 
while, but by all means get another if he doesn’t please 
you. It’s your garden.” 

“I know.’’ Connie was thoughtful. Evidently there 
was little approach to Donald’s interest along this line. 
She tried another tack. 

“I was wondering if we might plan for another house 
party along about the twentieth, say. What do you think ? 
Would it be fun? Or had you made some other plans?” 

“No, I’ve no plans.” 

“Well, then, whom would you like to ask?” 

“Oh, any one you like. I don’t know. I’ll leave that 
to you.” 

Connie sat on the arm of a chair and swung her foot, 
disconsolately. Donald had turned back to his accounts. 
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly. How pro¬ 
voking he was when she had come there this morning on 
248 


MANY WATERS 


purpose to be agreeable! Connie followed the handsome 
line of his profile as he bent over the desk, and, as often 
before, she was thrilled with a sudden affection for him, 
not so much admiration as the pride of possession. She 
waited a few minutes and then spoke again: 

“You’re not taking much interest in me, Donny.” 

He pushed back his chair impatiently. 

“Am I disturbing you?” she asked quickly. 

“No, I’d about finished, anyway.” He rose and closed 
the top of the desk with a snap. Connie stood up, too, 
her hands fluttering like delicate moths over the bosom of 
her dress. 

“Donny,” she said quickly, “I’m sorry I was so dis¬ 
agreeable last night.” 

“All right,” he said. 

She ran to him impulsively. 

“I’m horrid, aren’t I?” 

He smiled. 

She clenched her little fists fiercely. 

“Why don’t you beat me? I should in your place.” 

He laughed as he put her lightly from him. 

“It wouldn’t do any good.” 

She drew back, abashed by his coldness. There had 
been no desire in the embrace he gave her. And suddenly 
she thought, “He is ashamed of me!” 

“I’m going out to look over the new greenhouses down 
the hill,” Donald explained cheerfully. 

Her eyes followed him to the door; eyes remote, rather} 
hard, strangely speculative. 

He had rebuffed her little attempt at penitence. She 
hardened suddenly. 

When she went downstairs there was a message from 
Disbrow lying on the hall table. It contained his excuses 
and apologies for hurrying away from the house party 
249 


MANY WATERS 


unexpectedly. The note said he was catching the early 
train from Thornton, and regretted that there had been 
no chance even to say good-bye. His summons was 
urgent and he had no choice but to comply. 

Connie laughed rather grimly as she read it. She stood 
silent in the hall for a long time after she had finished 
it, crumpling the letter slowly and thoughtfully between 
her fingers. 


CHAPTER XV 


M ARIAN, as she walked up the gravel path in 
front of the cottage, heaved a half-audible sigh 
of relief. 

But a few minutes before she had alighted at Penny- 
man’s comer from the Thornton bus, whither she had 
gone to see Aunt Julia and Miss Purvis off on the train 
for a visit to the latter’s home. It was the first time 
Aunt Julia had left her since she came to live at the 
cottage. Miss Purvis—Miss Kate, as Marian called her 
—had been their guest for the past month, and Aunt 
Julia’s return visit had been a thing long talked of and 
planned for. 

In the year they had lived together, Marian had grown 
to be very fond of Aunt Julia, her father’s elder half- 
sister. Yet she looked forward to the coming period of 
life without her with a certain childish elation in her 
absolute freedom. There had been a somewhat trying 
moment of indecision just before the travellers left, when 
Aunt Julia had threatened to recant her promise to Miss 
Kate and abandon the whole idea of the visit. 

Aunt Julia was timorous. It occurred to her of a sud¬ 
den that Marian ought not to stay alone at the cottage. 
Marian expressed her entire absence of fear, but Aunt 
Julia insisted that she ought to be afraid. It didn’t mat¬ 
ter whether she was or not. For there were no nearer 
neighbours than the Hall on the one side, and Danny 

251 


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Devine’s cottage on the other, and, as every one knew, 
Danny was not only deaf but crippled with rheumatism 
besides. What would Marian do if burglars came, or 
fire broke out, or tramps appeared from nowhere? 

Marian laughed. “I’ll be careful, very careful about 
fire, auntie; and we haven’t enough here to tempt burg¬ 
lars. As for tramps, there hasn’t been one seen in Whit- 
ridge in years. Besides, if there were any they’d all go 
to the Hall. No indeed, I shall be perfectly safe and 
rather enjoy being alone. And you mustn’t disappoint 
Miss Kate; you must go with her as you promised.” 

Miss Purvis added her entreaties and reassurances to 
Marian’s and in the end they had their way. Miss Julia 
departed, a large, anxious, quivering mass of excitement 
and apprehension. 

She wiped a hasty tear from her eyes as she leaned 
out of the train window to wave a final kiss to her niece. 

“Be a good girl, Marian, and take care of yourself. 
Be sure to lock the house up well at night and don’t go 
out without taking the key with you. Remember to order 
the groceries early and be sure to have Mrs. Challock 
come every Wednesday to do the cleaning. And don’t tire 
yourself all out getting meals. Run down to Mrs. Jer- 
rold’s occasionally. And if you get too lonesome, don’t 
be afraid to send for me. I can get home in half a day’s 
time, you know. Dear me, the train’s starting. Well, 
I suppose we must say good-bye. I almost wish I weren’t 
going, I do, indeed. Do be sure—but there isn’t time— 
Good- bye, dear! Good-bye! Good—” 

Marian followed the slowly moving train down to 
the end of the platform, waving and smiling. Then she 
returned to Whitridge and the empty cottage, feeling 
rather strange and important and thoughtful. 

After all, it had been a success having Aunt Julia here. 
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At first she had doubted, had resisted with all her strength 
the idea of a newcomer at the cottage—a woman she had 
not seen since she was a very small child, scarcely more 
than a baby. But the pressure brought to bear had been 
too great for her. It was just after Ted had left, going 
miserably away to pursue his fortunes elsewhere. Mrs. 
Wetherell, the only person to whom Marian had found 
herself able to turn at the time of her mother’s death, had 
favoured the idea of Aunt Julia. She had taken upon 
herself to write and find out Miss Pritchard’s views. The 
result was that Aunt Julia was found to be a particularly 
lonely person. She had no real home and would come to 
Marian gladly. Mrs. Wetherell talked it over with the 
girl. 

“Have her for a little while, anyway,she suggested. 
“We’ll call it just a visit at first, until you find out how 
you both get along with each other. It will do no harm 
to try; and you needn’t commit yourself beyond that.” 
And Marian had bowed her head. 

So Aunt Julia was sent for. She arrived; a pleasant, 
affable, not too garrulous old lady with an expansive, 
beaming smile; and herself almost as large as the little 
cottage rooms. Marian feared at first that she wouldn’t 
be able to get around them, but she proved not only able 
to move rapidly and easily, but tO' be extremely energetic. 
She was an excellent manager, and in almost no time 
effected changes in the housekeeping which were little 
short of miraculous. Aunt Julia saw to it that Marian 
had regular and hearty meals; Aunt Julia saw that the 
vegetables and groceries arrived fresh and promptly; 
Aunt Julia undertook that there should be no' waste or 
want in the cottage. 

The girl quite early turned over to her the whole di¬ 
rection of the housekeeping. She interfered not at all 
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with Marian's personal liberty. They had spoken once 
only of Marian's mother. Miss Pritchard was a wise 
woman, and after that once the subject was not brought 
up again. 

Yes, taken all in all, Aunt Julia was a success. Marian 
was fond of her; but this visit to Miss Purvis was going 
to do them both good, give them time to recapitulate, to 
regard each other in the focus of distance and to acquire 
new points of view. 

Aunt Julia was chatty and sociable. Marian felt that 
she herself must often have provided dull company for 
the kindly old lady. She had enjoyed having Miss Kate 
there. They had had a splendid time together, indulging 
in long conversations, seemingly about nothing at all, but 
which gave them great pleasure. And now in Miss Pur¬ 
vis's own home with new topics, new fields of interest, 
what long days of enjoyment awaited them. She saw 
Aunt Julia, fat and smiling and comfortable, and Miss 
Purvis, with her prim, pursed-up mouth and withered 
little frame, going about together here and there, chat¬ 
ting, calling, gossiping, playing cards, altogether having 
the time of their lives. She was very glad for Aunt Julia 
and wished much pleasure for her. 

Meanwhile she meant to enjoy the occasion, too. She 
was making plans towards this end as she walked up the 
gravel path before the cottage. 

First of all she meant to take a lot of long rides. Nance, 
not so young as she had been, was sadly in need of exer¬ 
cise. They must renew their old good times together. 

But just now, to-day, she wanted only the large, open 
feeling of the empty house, the surety of being able to 
go and come as she pleased. She planned a long after¬ 
noon of puttering and fussing about, looking over old 
keepsakes, sorting old letters, feeling again the charm of 
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complete and unchallenged ownership. How foolish of 
Aunt Julia to think that she would be lonely or at a loss 
for amusement! 

And there were the old stables; she must look at them. 
She had not been over them in a long time. Her thoughts 
flew for a moment to Ted and how well he used to 
keep the place up and the buildings in repair; and for a 
fleeting instant she felt a faint homesickness for him. 

And yet she did not really wish him here. She wanted 
just what was before her, perfect freedom, perfect peace 
and content. 


2 

An hour or so later Marian came out of the house by 
the back door and proceeded across the narrow strip of 
grass to the entrance of the stable yard. 

She walked along the edge of the paddock and past 
the low-roofed small extension where Nance still lived 
in lonely splendour. This was the only one of the build¬ 
ings still in use. Connected by a series of low sheds with 
the main stables, it had seemed more feasible to utilise 
it as Nance’s future domicile, for it was closest to the 
house and consequently more convenient for Marian who 
now took entire care of the horse herself. 

But Marian was not bent on a visit to Nance to-day. 
Instead, she walked on to the main building and paused 
for a moment before the partly open door. 

The thought of Ted recurred, Ted as she had last seen 
him going down the road towards Whitridge, a shabby 
suit-case in his hand, looking seedy and old. They 
had found the suit-case in the attic after a prolonged 
search, for no one in that family had ever travelled 
much. Well, that was long ago. 

She pressed against the stable door. It stuck and she 
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had to lean her whole weight against it to move it. Then 
gathering her skirts about her she entered. 

The place was rather dark and musty, but neat and 
orderly, just as Ted had left it so many months ago. She 
wandered about for a time, gazing in somewhat melan¬ 
choly silence at the empty stalls and the worn and rotting 
saddles hung up in a row above the pile of leathern straps, 
buckleless, broken or otherwise useless. She was mistress 
of all this now. Yet something depressing in the sight 
made her turn away. 

She walked over to where the ladder leading to the loft 
had been left standing idly against the side of the open 
trapdoor. After a second’s hesitation she mounted it. 
She had not been up here since she was a little girl. 

It was much lighter and airier up above. The door in 
the front, with its overhanging crane and tackle for lift¬ 
ing in the hay, had, through some oversight, been left 
open. Marian thought with a sudden recollection of 
responsibility, “I must see that it is closed before the snow 
comes again.” 

The floor, strewn with hay that crumpled and was soft 
under her feet, sloped invitingly towards the open space. 
She went over and stood in the opening, letting the soft 
breeze from outside play upon her face. It was a warm, 
sunny day, clear and sparkling. It seemed to her that she 
could see very far away beyond the house and the stable 
yard and the long straight line of trees bordering the road 
that ran towards Thornton. Surely she was closer, much 
closer, to the white feathery clouds floating overhead. 

She glanced back towards the interior of the loft again. 
She saw the grain bins, cobwebby and mouldy; and the 
sweet, acrid scent of apples greeted her nostrils delicately. 

Stooping down she made a place for herself in the dry 
hay just inside the open door, and sitting down, swung 
256 


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her feet out over the yard below. Pleasant to be lifted 
up here, high above the world, to pretend to be impris¬ 
oned in an enchanted tower, with Camelot or Ascalon 
down there below. These might be dragons approaching, 
looking like tiny creatures from her great height. But 
they were only the two puppies, Toodles and Tags. 

Marian called to them and waved her hand. They 
scampered about, wagging their tails and giving short, 
ecstatic barks, but they could not get up to her there. She 
laughed happily, and leaned her head back against the 
side of the doorway. 

It was there that Donald found her. He strolled out 
from around the side of the cottage looking for her. He 
did not see her for some time. She kept still and watched 
him glancing quickly about in search of her. Then the 
barking of the dogs called his attention to her, and he 
took off his cap and waved it. 

“Come up,” she called down to him. 

“I say, don’t lean so far out. You might lose your 
balance. How did you get there? You didn’t fly up, I 
suppose.” 

“There’s a ladder inside. You can climb it if I did.” 

He disappeared below and in another moment was by 
her side. 

“I’ll fix you a cushion here beside me.” 

She knelt on the floor and pulled the hay together into 
a rude seat, and he crouched there beside her, a little 
back from the opening. 

“Be careful! You’ll fall out.” 

“Oh, no, I won’t.” 

But he caught hold of her arm and did not let go until 
she was seated again. 

“What were you doing up here? Just dreaming?” 

She nodded. “I was looking over the old place to see 
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how it was faring now that we don’t use it any more; 
and it was so pleasant here that I stopped. It’s rather 
nice, don’t you think?” 

The sun was getting low now, sinking rapidly behind 
the barn. Its level rays pressed steadily against the house 
standing out flat against its background of green; picked 
out a fragment of something shiny, a bit of broken 
glass, perhaps, in the yard below, and set it sparkling 
like a diamond. There was the faint pervasive smell of 
apples within and the warm smell of flowers from with¬ 
out. A flat, tinkling sound, the sound of Danny Devine’s 
anvil in the blacksmith’s shop not far away, was the only 
outer noise that came to them, save the humming of bees 
and the occasional crowing of a cock. The barn seemed 
full of a soft, dusky darkness that stirred as they moved 
in the soft hay. There was a faint patter and scamper¬ 
ing of feet far below as a mouse ran across the floor. 
They could hear it plainly in the intense stillness. 

Donald looked at the girl before him. She was be¬ 
tween him and the light from the opening, so that she 
looked all dark in silhouette, sitting very upright against 
the white glare of the sky. He seemed to see her sud¬ 
denly for the first time. “What does she do with herself 
all the time?” he thought. “Why hasn’t she any one to 
look after her—any one besides that old woman?’’ He 
turned towards her and the soft hay crumpled under 
him. 

“Aren’t you lonely here? Don’t you ever get tired of 
life here day in and day out? Don’t you ever want to 
change ?” 

She looked ajjt him gravely, reflectively. 

“Sometimes I do,” she said slowly. 

He took a wisp of the hay and drew it between his 
teeth. 


258 


MANY WATERS 

“Why don’t you marry Mark Wetherell?” he asked 
suddenly. 

She gave him a quick glance, and for an instant dropped 
the thick veil of her lashes over her eyes. 

“Well?” he said. 

“I—I don’t love him enough.” It was spoken very 
low and hesitatingly. 

“But I thought you were so fond—” He paused 
She had turned and looked at him. For a moment her 
dark grey eyes gazed straight at him. He could not see 
her perfectly, because he was facing the light, but he 
knew that their look was not all surprise, and he hesi¬ 
tated, dropping his own eyes to the hay-strewn floor. 

The sun, with a final, all-embracing blaze, sank below 
the barn. In the cool seclusion of the loft he moved a 
trifle nearer her. 

“Marian,” he said gently, “am I to blame?” 

She bent her head slowly, thoughtfully. There was 
neither denial nor concealment in her attitude. 

“But—but why should that be? Why should you let 
that influence you—that mere boy-and-girl affair?” 

“It was that to you,” she said. 

“Ah, but I meant it at the time!” 

“Yet you forgot me.” 

“Marian,” he said, “did you really care for me?” 

“A long time ago.” 

“And now?” 

Something stirred in her—some vibrant emotion. 
She knew that she still loved him, that nothing had ever 
really changed her, knew it by the queer quickening of 
her pulses at his words. What if this were her chance 
—her chance to have him back again ? It might not mean 
much to him but to her— 

They were sitting very close together, silent, waiting. 

259 


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The day deepened. Far away, over towards Tonomet, 
a church bell began ringing, lazily, dreamily, its faint 
tinkle, tinkle, bringing back to them poignant memories 
of Sabbaths of their youth. The sun had left the garden; 
and the cottage stood white and blank beyond the gates 
of the stable yard. A faint flutter of pigeons’ wings 
winnowed the air as the birds settled in the eaves of the 
farthest barn. A silence heavy and throbbing succeeded. 

Donald turned to the girl at his side. A faint memory 
had awakened in him—the memory of a night on the 
seashore, but not clearly, not visible to his inward eye. 
Yet once, ah, once— 

“Marian,” he asked, “what happened?” 

She opened her hands in a pitiful little gesture of ques¬ 
tioning. She needed no explanation of his somewhat 
cryptic utterance. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never known. I wrote you—you 
never answered, never came—” 

“Never came—” he repeated dully. “Never came 
where?” 

“Why here, that night I asked you to come here. I 
waited for you as I said I would down by the gate—” 

“But when ? How long ago ? When was all this ?” 

She looked at him with large dark eyes; the colour 
crept into her cheeks. 

“The night after you had been here to call, when—when 
we were all so horrid.” 

It sounded childish but he did not smile. 

“And you say you asked me to come and I didn’t?” 

“Yes, I wrote you. I know it went, for I mailed it 
myself.” 

“But, dear, I never got it.” 

She was silent, confused, thinking. This explanation 
had never occurred to her. 

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“Marian,” Donald said suddenly, “was Connie there— 
at the house, I mean—at the time?” 

She reflected a moment, trying to remember. 

“Yes, I think so. Yes, I know she was there, because 
it was just before that that she asked me to come to see 
her and I couldn’t go.” 

I see. 

He was silent again. In an instant, as if it had been 
yesterday, the whole scene flashed before him. Connie 
standing in the hall, fluttering uneasily, the strange light 
of excited eagerness in her eyes, her nervous manner. 
. . . He had wondered. . . . What was it she had asked 
. . . that he play bridge ? He had even wondered at that; 
she hated bridge—particularly with such players as his 
father and mother. Nothing would induce her to play 
with the old Colonel now. 

He turned to the girl at his side. He did not tell her 
about Connie and his suspicions, but she guessed. He 
only said: 

“Did it make such a great difference to you then?” 

“Not then. I was only hurt. But I trusted you still. 
It was later—” 

“Ah!” he said. He leaned forward and caught her 
hand in his. His voice was very tender. “But you must 
know I wouldn’t have hurt you like that! You must know 
that I did care—” He paused. He could see her face 
more clearly now, the resolute lifted chin, and the proud 
little mouth. Proud, that yet once had yielded to his 
kisses. Ah, once! Had he been indeed a blind, unseeing 
fool all these years? 

“I suppose I ought not to have told you,” she was say¬ 
ing. 

“No, no, it is better. Now at last we know.” 

“But what’s the use—now?” 

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“Now?”he cried, “now?” And he laughed a little. 
“What does it matter if it’s now or then or another time? 
What does anything matter but that we know how much 
we are to each other; that we’ve come together again; 
that I’ve found out about you and that you’ve forgiven 
me? For you have forgiven me, haven’t you?” 

He knelt beside her, putting his arms about her and 
drawing her farther back into the interior of the loft, 
away from the opening. 

She felt her pulses quickening at his words, felt, with a 
strange emotion of happiness, his arms stealing about her 
body and the subtle thrill of physical contact as her cheek 
brushed his coat. 

She was conscious of all this—loving it—yet she drew 
back, pulling away from him, pressing herself back against 
the rough wall of the loft. 

But she could not move far from him. He was still 
close to her, whispering words of endearment in her ear. 
He stooped and kissed the long line of her neck where 
the pale golden hair began to grow. There was something 
strangely sweet, strangely familiar, and yet terrifying in 
his embraces, his nearness. Ah! she must not! She must 
not! 

She was thinking stubbornly of Connie and the fact 
that he was Connie’s husband. She was telling herself 
that it was all wrong, wrong! Yet she was thinking 
why should she give him up? Connie had cheated her. 
Connie had stolen him from her. Why should she care 
about Connie? For a wild moment she felt her defences 
slipping from her, felt herself unable to cope with this 
new, strange joy; so that that still white splendour of 
innocence in which she had always seemed to him to stand 
enfolded faded, and he caught her to him. He felt only 
her cheek, soft as the petal of a flower, felt her lips 
262 


MANY WATERS 

crushed against his, soft and yielding, knew again the 
exquisite thrill of conquest in the frightened murmur of 
the words of protest he heard but would not heed. He 
bent low, whispering words of love, of passion, rapturous 
words, unreckoned words— 

“Darling! Darling! Darling! You do love me, you 

do r 

“Don’t say that! Ah, don’t say that!” 

“But it’s true!” 

“No, no!” 

“But it is, I know it is. Tell me.” 

She hesitated. Some such moment as this must have 
come to her mother, some such moment when the ques¬ 
tion was before her whether or not to take the joy that 
offered. If she were to assent would it be hers now at 
last, the joy she had missed, the sweetness and the wonder 
she had looked forward to all those weary years of her 
childhood? Yes, some such moment must have come to 
her mother, and her mother had decided. 

She looked at Donald but she did not really see him. 
What she saw was Ted Chamberlayne going down the 
road towards Whitridge with the shabby suit-case in his 
hand, his coat worn, greenish, with its frayed collar. 
There could be no resemblance there to the dapper young 
man beside her, yet this was the vision that came to her 
as she gazed at Donald’s handsome head; and a slight 
shiver shook her. She drew away, gently, firmly. 

“I can’t, Donald, I can’t!” 

He dropped his arms disappointed. 

“Then you don’t love me.” It was more a statement 
than a question, yet she rallied to answer it. 

“No, Donald dear, not any more.” 

It was the first lie she had ever told. 

He drew back, chagrined, rueful, almost sulky. He did 
263 


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not see how her fingers were tight clenched in her hands, 
nor how her lips trembled. 

“There was a time when you did—when you cared a 
lot.” 

“Yes, there was a time.” 

He took a wisp of hay in his hands and tied it angrily 
into knots. He stopped and looked at her more closely 
from under brooding brows. 

“And I believe you do now.” 

She shook her head. “Not now, Donald, it was too 
long ago.” She felt her strength coming back. “You 
—you musn’t be so ridiculous! Why, you would have 
staged quite a scene here if I had let you!” 

Her voice sounded absurdly false and hollow in her 
own ears. How could it ever deceive him? But it did, 
apparently; for he turned his eyes away. He looked un¬ 
happy. Had her words hurt him? Ah, how she hated 
to hurt him! Her own eyes filled with tears and she sat 
up, smoothing the dust and fragments of hay from her 
dress lest he should see. 

“Well, I must be going.” 

He stood up, towering above her where she still knelt 
at his feet. 

She looked up timidly. 

“But we’ll still be friends, Donald?” 

“Friends!” He laughed. “Yes, if you like. Have it 
your own way.” 

He went away from her down the ladder and out 
through the stable yard. There was still with him the 
sense of kissing her, the touch of the soft, smooth skin, 
the scent of her hair and the momentary clinging of her 
lips. For a space she had loved him, if only for a space. 
Could it have been over so quickly? Was it the truth 
she had told him when she said all that was over? Or 
264 


MANY WATERS 

did she love him still and only deny it lest they betray one 
another? Was she only acting, then? 

Perhaps. But she was right. The intoxicating sense 
of her nearness, of her touch, was still with him but he 
knew that it would not last. Marian was right. He must 
go back to Connie. Connie was a girl after his own 
heart, no subtleties, no overrighteous principles. With 
the other it was different. How to soothe her fears, her 
qualms and scruples would be an ever recurring prob¬ 
lem. He would never be able to live up to her. And in 
truth the situation was impossible. Things like that were 
sure to leak out. It was well nigh impossible to pursue 
a path such as the one indicated without sooner or later 
coming a cropper. Yes, it was better to let the matter 
drop before it really began! 

He whistled as he walked along the road towards home, 
and snapped at the grasses with his stick. Yes, it was 
better so. Yet there was present with him the idea that 
he had missed something; that something was gone from 
him, an old memory, perhaps; a vague and lovely dream. 
Was it a child standing, white and beautiful, in the moon¬ 
light by the seashore ? But he could not recall it clearly. 
Was she gone indeed, or had she never been? 

3 

From her serie in the hayloft Marian watched him go, 
watched him swing out through the stable yard, past the 
white wall of the cottage, disappear among the green trees 
and bushes of the driveway; and it was as if something 
went out of her life. 

She turned to still the crying voice within her, the 
.voice that bade her run out after him, follow him down 
the road, call him back to her. It was difficult this com¬ 
forting. 


265 


MANY WATERS 

“He would have taken me as easily as that!” she told 
herself bitterly. 

Yet it did not help, only made the pain greater. Over 
and over she recounted their few short words together, 
over and over whispered that it was now too late. She 
had done the right thing but at what a cost! Was there 
anything, anything in life to make it up to her? 

The night crept on and still she sat there, crouched 
in the warm hay. A star came out and gleamed wanly 
in the still rosy heavens. A little, singing wind rose sud¬ 
denly in the garden and fluttered through the trees about 
the yard. The scent of flowers drifted in through the open 
door. There came to her a robin’s sleepy call and the 
sound of the pigeons settling down to rest in the far 
barn, soft cooings and flutterings. Then, very far away, 
the faint, shrill whistle of a train— 

Suddenly, with a little broken cry, she flung herself 
face downward in the hay and buried her face in her 
arms. 


CHAPTER XVI 


i 

D ONALD walked into his wife’s upstairs sitting 
room on a day in early October at about five in 
the afternoon. It was his mother’s old boudoir 
which Connie had appropriated to herself, and the furni¬ 
ture and contents of the room had been changed to suit 
her own taste. Donald found it a rather pleasanter room 
than in the old days. 

He had come in from a long ride and looked forward 
with enjoyment to a late cup of tea and an hour’s pleasant 
chat with Connie. There were only themselves at home 
now, and he found the quiet and solitude decidedly pleas¬ 
ant after a round of more or less tiresome house parties. 

But Connie, if she had indulged in tea that afternoon, 
had long since finished, for there was no sign of the 
usual paraphernalia about. Although it was a warm day, 
there was a fire burning on the hearth and the room was 
stuffy. Connie sat morosely curled up in a corner of the 
long sofa, her eyes vacantly staring at the glowing embers 
in the grate. 

“Well,” said Donald shortly, “you don’t look very 
cheerful here. It’s close; why not have some air in?” 

There was positive distaste expressed in the face Con¬ 
nie raised to his. She looked back at the crackling fire 
without speaking. 

Donald came over to her, stood behind her, leaning 
over the back of the sofa. He looked at her more closely. 
267 


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Connie’s eyes were red with weeping. He questioned 
her but she would vouchsafe no explanation. 

Donald went downstairs again and mixed himself a 
whiskey and soda at the dining-room sideboard. He 
felt rather put upon and out of sorts. Why should Con¬ 
nie sulk like that? He had come home full of good 
humour and had tried to cheer her but she would have 
none of his comforting. Well, she must get over it as 
best she could then. 

Connie appeared at dinner cold and indifferent. She 
ate scarcely anything. Her mood of perverse estrange¬ 
ment continued for several days. Donald shrugged his 
shoulders and went philosophically about his business. 

There was the new heating plant to see about, one or 
two tenant houses that needed repairs; his mind was 
really occupied with other things. Although always, back 
of his preoccupation, he was conscious that there was 
something wrong with Connie. Poor girl! Perhaps she 
was tired of Whitridge. It was dull unless they kept the 
house packed with guests all the while and that was a 
bore. Perhaps he was a trifle tired of village life himself. 
At all events he hit upon a plan for raising Connie’s 
spirits as well as amusing himself. He found her alone 
in the drawing-room one evening just before dinner and 
broached his little idea. 

“I thought we might run out to California again for 
a few months and possibly go on to Japan. I’ve nothing 
in particular to keep me here just now. The governor’s 
so well settled for the time being, and I’ve been feeling 
a bit restless. What do you say?” 

He had suggested it casually, but he expected to see 
Connie’s eyes shine, and hear an enthusiastic acclamation; 
but Connie sprang back, her little fists tight clenched, 
indignation flashing from her eyes. 

268 


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“You beast! How can I go?” 

Donald stared. “But—but why in Heaven’s name can’t 
you ?” 

Connie flushed darkly and dropped her eyes. 

“A pretty thing you’ve done to me—you—” 

And all of a sudden Donald understood. 

“Connie!” he cried, “you don’t mean it!” 

She gave him a scornful look. 

“But—but, I say, that’s fine!” he gasped, “that’s great! 
What’s the matter? Why do you look like that? Do 
you mean you don’t want it?” 

She looked at him with black fury in her eyes. 

“Want it! Who would? Did we plan for anything 
like this? Want it! If I knew how to get rid of it with¬ 
out hurting myself I’d do it.” 

Donald frowned. “Connie, don’t talk like that.” 

Connie laughed. “Oh, yes, you can pretend you’re 
shocked. You can afford to be. It’s all very well for 
you! You don’t have to be shut up in the house for 
months and months, and then perhaps die at the end. 
You don’t have any of the bother of it. You don’t have 
to wait and suffer and suffer! It’s all right for you. 
You can go off to Japan—” 

“Connie,” he pleaded, “don’t get so excited. It’s all 
right. It will turn out splendidly. We won’t go away, 
either of us. We’ll stay right here until it’s over. We’ll 
wait a year and then take the—the little fella with us. 
You’ll love it then, Connie, I know you will. You will 
now, as soon as you get used to the idea.” 

But Connie pouted angrily and refused to listen to any 
softening of her sentence. 

“A lot you know about it!” was all she would say; 
nor was Donald able, in the months that followed, to 
shake her firm conviction that she was doomed to die. 

269 


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“So that you can marry that horrid Pritchard girl!” 
she said once spitefully. 

Donald laughed, patted her shoulder and turned away. 
He did not tell her that Marian and he had taken to 
riding together again. He knew that it would only an¬ 
noy her and make her more than ever dissatisfied with 
her condition. Best to let things like that come out by 
themselves if they had to; if not, so much the better. Yet 
in his way he was patient and considerate of Connie at 
this time. 


2 

Donald’s son was born on the sixteenth of May. 

He was a poor little mite of a thing weighing only six 
pounds. Nevertheless, Connie had a very serious time 
bringing him into the world. She was ill for a long 
time. 

“Never again!” were the first words she said when the 
mists of oblivion caused by the chloroform they gave her 
cleared away. And decidedly she meant it. 

She cared for the child dutifully and resentfully. She 
refused flatly to nurse him, and indeed it would have been 
out of the question in any case, for her strength was not 
equal to the task. She was very delicate, but the fine 
flower of her loveliness had increased. The soft, satiny 
skin, ivory white now in place of the old high colour, 
looked transparent, as if letting through faint glimpses of 
a beautiful soul within. The violet shadows under her 
eyes increased their apparent size and blackness, and the 
pastel-hued negligees she affected gave an added touch 
of ethereal loveliness. To any eyes she would have 
seemed charming. To Donald, relieved at last from the 
fearful anxiety he had been in on her account, she was 
marvellously perfect. He felt again the affection he had 
270 


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had for her in the early days of their marriage. He hov¬ 
ered about her like a lover. 

Perhaps it was in a measure Connie’s indifference to 
him at this time that influenced him—for Connie had not 
quite forgiven him, even yet, the pain he had caused her; 
perhaps it was merely gratitude on his part for the son 
she had given him. For Donald was proud and pleased 
at his fatherhood. He held the little atom of humanity 
with its strange likeness to himself, in his arms, dangling 
it, laughing, speaking foolishly to it; and, as Connie said, 
generally acting like an idiot, until her own bright eyes 
and engaging loveliness lured him away from the child’s 
cradle to her side. 

Donald was happy. Indeed, during his whole life he 
had but very rarely, and then only incidentally, been any¬ 
thing else; but he was especially happy now. He made 
endless plans for Connie and the baby and himself. 

He had not forgotten Marian. He rode with her still 
and he was fond of her. Moreover, he was grateful to 
her for her handling of that little incident of last summer 
which had cropped up so suddenly, and which might have 
proved so awkward later on. He did not say to her, 
“You were right that time when you turned me down. 
I shouldn’t have proved a faithful lover—how could I, 
being myself and under present circumstances?” but that 
was in truth his present attitude. Outwardly they were 
as he had promised—friends. 

Yes, at this time Donald was a model husband, happy, 
carefree, a trifle more boisterous than formerly, witty, 
gay, watched over by Fate, a darling of the gods. There 
came to him no shadow of anxiety, even despite the fact 
that before Connie’s motherhood was accomplished 
America had entered the World War. 

Yet the matter seemed far off, remote, not a thing of 
271 


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immediate, vital importance like little Dick’s (they had 
named the child Richard after Connie’s father) first at¬ 
tempts at a definite personality, or the clutching grasp of 
his tiny fingers. 

Connie, still immersed in the pleasures of being an in¬ 
valid, took only a passing interest in the world events of 
the day. She had forgotten a long-ago conversation sh® 
had once had with Kenneth Disbrow. Now that the situ¬ 
ation he then suggested had occurred, now that the coun¬ 
try was actually at war, Connie assumed, nonchalantly, 
that Donald could have no intention of going. 

Naturally, he couldn’t go away and leave her in her 
present state and with little Dick to look after, too. The 
idea was too preposterous for Connie to consider even. 
She smiled wisely and superiorly when women of her 
acquaintance, discussing possibilities, said gushingly: 
“My dear, what would you do if your husband had to 
go? 

Connie knew better than that. Donald had never had 
to do anything he didn’t want to and never would; and 
she was quite sure he wouldn’t want to do anything like 
this. Nor would she herself consent if he did. It was 
not love for her husband that made her take this stand, 
but because she had no desire to be deserted thus early 
in her married life. 

Besides, they said life in the trenches, aside from the 
danger, was perfectly filthy, and Donald was always so 
particular about his personal habits. No, indeed, it 
wouldn’t do at all. 

Donald himself reassured her on the subject once or 
twice. No, he wouldn’t go until they made him, any¬ 
way. For her further satisfaction he assumed the coward. 

“There’s no one would run quicker than I would if I 
once saw a ‘bloody Boche’ coming towards me, you can 
272 


MANY WATERS 


bet. They’d find that out in an instant in the army. 
You needn’t worry. I’d never get further than a train¬ 
ing camp, anyway—that is, if I weren’t shot as a de¬ 
serter before then.” 

Connie smiled and was content. She accorded him the 
first real show of affection since the baby’s birth; and 
welcomed him to her arms as a reward for his constancy 
to herself. For she did not misunderstand his little pre¬ 
tense in regard to his lack of valour—although she may 
have pretended to believe him—may even have allowed 
it to tinge with a faint contempt her present thoughts 
of him. 


3 

In the meantime Mark Wetherell had entered the first 
training camp to be organised. Before he left to begin 
his earnest task of fitting himself for the army, he sought 
out Marian, alone once more at the cottage; for Aunt 
Julia had been prevailed upon to repeat her last year’s 
visit to Miss Purvis. 

She received him in the little cottage parlour. 

“Marian, you’ve heard I’m going away?” 

*‘Yes, I know. I think it’s so brave of you. I’m 
awfully proud!” 

“Proud?” 

“Yes. To know you—to be a friend of yours.” 

They sat together in the darkened room saying little, 
thinking only of the coming parting and all it might fore- 
fend. The golden days of their companionship were over 
—for a long, long time to come. Both felt that as they 
murmured responses and spoke of the careless idle things 
that only yesterday had seemed so important and to-day 
were less than nothing. The clock on the mantelpiece 
ticked away the precious minutes remorselessly; the sound 
273 


MANY WATERS 


of Danny Devine’s anvil punctuated the stillness at ir¬ 
regular intervals. For all the eager excitement in Mark’s 
eyes the meeting was melancholy. 

He sat looking at her with those steady blue eyes as 
though he would fasten her image on his brain forever. 
But it was not alone the Marian of to-day he saw—but 
of all their days together. One after another there passed 
before his mind’s eye pictures of her—Marian a little 
girl in a brown gingham frock. holding a tiny grey kit¬ 
ten to her breast; Marian scudding along the beach with 
Donald and himself, her fair hair flying; Marian holding 
Nance’s head to the sea in the face of the dashing spray 
when the wind whipped chill across the grey wastes of 
water; Marian standing in the mellow moonlight on the 
dunes below Hodder’s Beach with the lights of Tonomet 
arching behind her— 

“You’re my oldest friend,” Marian was saying softly. 
“I knew you even before I knew Donald. And you were 
always kind!” 

“Who wouldn’t be kind to you, Marian?” 

“Some people haven’t been. Oh, Mark, why am I talk¬ 
ing this way! I know it’s wrong of me. I ought to send 
you away happy—” 

“You could, Marian.” 

She flushed suddenly and dropped her eyes; the colour 
crept into her cheeks. 

“You mean—?” 

“Marry me, Marian. Can’t you bring yourself to 
marry me? I shouldn’t ask much. I know you don’t 
love me. But then lots of people do marry without it— 
or with love only on one side. I’d be content.” 

“Oh, Mark, that wouldn’t do. I couldn’t! And it isn’t 
true that I don’t care for you. That’s what makes it so 
hard— I do care so much!” 

274 


MANY WATERS 


“I shouldn’t ask much,” he repeated. “And I’m going 
away. I may never come back. It’s six to one I don’t. 
And anyway, I’d be away a long time. So it wouldn’t 
be an endless sentence. I might set you free sooner than 
you think.” 

“Oh, Mark! Please, please don’t talk like that!” 

“Then you don’t think you could?” 

“You make me feel such a brute!” 

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to do that.” 

“But you do. You make it so hard for me. And I 
don’t understand why you should want me like that— 
without love.” Her voice was very low and sorrowful. 

“I don’t know either, Marian, but I do. I ask myself 
that sometimes when I’m alone; when I find myself 
thinking about you and wondering what you’re doing. 
I ask myself why I want you so much when you don’t 
care a hang about me. Why I don’t go away somewhere 
and forget all about you.” 

“And don’t you ever find the answer?” 

“There isn’t any answer except that I love you.” 

“Oh, Mark!” 

“Well, it’s true.” 

“But, Mark, think! After all, it would mean so little 
if I married you now, like this. It wouldn’t be fair—to 
you.” 

“It would if I knew about it and went into it with my 
eyes open. I’ve told you that would do.” His tone was 
dogged. 

She considered his words a moment. Then she shook 
her head. 

“No, Mark, it wouldn’t do. I’d have to feel it my¬ 
self.” 

“And you don’t?” 

He sighed. 


275 


MANY WATERS 


They were silent, staring at each other across the little 
room. Marian rose and walked over to the window where 
the blinds had been closed against the afternoon sun. 
She saw the garden through the slanted shutters, lying 
still and peaceful beyond. There was a great pain and 
tenderness in her heart. 

“I suppose I thought I could persuade you to love me 
later,” Mark said suddenly, evidently following some line 
of thought of his own. 

“I don’t know. I suppose I’m a fool. Forgive me, 
Marian. I’m always bothering you and then being sorry 
for it. It’s good of you to be so patient with me. I’m 
afraid I’m a fearful nuisance. You’ll be glad to be rid 
of me.” 

It struck deeper pain into her heart to see him thus 
trying to make light of the matter. 

She raised her hands suddenly with a little gesture of 
weariness. 

“Oh, Mark, Mark! Don’t you see, I would do it if 
I could—if it were a possible thing for me to do so 
without being false to you and false to myself. I care 
for you, Mark, so very much—truly I do—that I couldn’t 
do you this wrong. It is wrong, it is! I feel that it is 
—even—even when you’re going away—” her voice 
faltered and broke. 

He crossed suddenly to her side and took the plaintive, 
yielding hands in both of his. 

“Marian darling, it’s all right. Don’t worry any more ; 
it’s all right, dear. God! how many times I seem to 
have said that to you before. I’m a cad, a rotter, to have 
bothered you like this! But I promise you I won’t ask 
you again, not—not unless you tell me you want me to. 
And you won’t do that, will you?” 

He laughed lightly and dropped her hands. 

276 


MANY WATERS 


‘‘And now good-bye, dearest—for you are my dearest, 
even if I’m not to tell you so again. I’m off almost at 
once. You’re not to have any false regrets or qualms of 
conscience after I’ve gone. You’ve done the best you 
could for me and it’s all right. You understand that, 
don’t you? Because I’m a pig-headed fool is no excuse 
for your worrying. Good-bye, dear. You’ll give me 
a kiss for old times’ sake? And promise to write me 
sometimes and tell me how things are at home. I’ll 
send you my address at once. Good-bye. Take care of 
yourself. Don’t look so sad. Who knows? I may even 
forget you after all. Remember me to Miss Julia. Good¬ 
bye. . . 

She went with him only as far as the parlour door, 
When he was gone she turned back again to the window 
to watch him going down the drive, tilting the shutters 
upward so that she might see him as long as possible. 
But he did not look back. 


CHAPTER XVII 


i 

I T was something of a surprise to Connie to hear, 
somewhat later in the summer, from Kenneth 
Disbrow. 

He wrote that he was stationed at a training camp 
not many miles beyond Tonomet, engaged in teaching 
the young idea how to shoot, likely to be there for some 
time and generally wretched because Fate had consigned 
him to this uncongenial occupation when he would so 
much rather have gone overseas to fight. He would like, 
he said, to run over and pay his respects some time in the 
near future. 

Connie was both surprised and pleased, and felt the 
revival of a quite unusual interest. In the interval of 
bearing her child she had, in fact, quite forgotten about 
Kenneth Disbrow. His reappearance in her life came at 
an opportune time. She was bored with the life around 
her, tired even of playing invalid, dull and vaguely de¬ 
pressed. Social life—even what there was of it in Thorn¬ 
ton and Whitridge—had perceptibly fallen off since the 
proclamation of war. No one talked anything else; it 
was stupid. Connie welcomed the diversion offered by 
Disbrow’s note with eager anticipation. 

She sent him a cordially worded invitation to come 
whenever he could, and by all means to spend his next 
leave with them at the Hall. 

Disbrow arrived within a week of receiving her letter, 
resplendent in his uniform. 

278 


MANY WATERS 


Connie had meant to gather together a few old friends 
on the occasion of his visit, but he came so unexpectedly 
that only Maisie Littell was there—to amuse Donald, as 
Connie told Dish row confidentially. The four of them 
made a merry party over the week-end. They electrified 
the villagers by appearing suddenly in the quiet streets 
in the most fashionable of motor cars, the girls dressed 
in their most daring costumes, and with loud talk and 
laughter showing a contemptuous disregard for the 
homely village people, who stared in open-mouthed won¬ 
der at this display of arrogance and magnificence. 

Marian saw them once or twice on these occasions, but 
she was not asked up to the Hall during the visit; and 
if Disbrow recognised her again it must have been that 
he had completely forgotten her former attraction for 
him. 

He left with a promise to return at the first opportu¬ 
nity. He found it a few weeks later. It was, it appeared, 
surprisingly easy for him to get away from camp for short 
visits. 

Maisie had gone by the time of this second visit and 
Donald was busy with some new farm buildings. He was 
taking more of an interest in the place than he used, per¬ 
haps because, due to little Dick’s arrival, they had re¬ 
mained there for a longer time together than ever be¬ 
fore. He was much concerned about the new buildings 
and matters in connection with them took up a good 
deal of his time. Connie and Disbrow were, therefore, 
necessarily largely dependent on each other for amuse¬ 
ment and entertainment. 

They had been one day for a long drive through the 
country—beautiful in its varied tapestry of green, warm 
and luxuriant—and were resting after it in the cool 
drawing-room close to the open French windows. 

279 


MANY WATERS 


They sat side by side on the sofa. Disbrow, his bold, 
handsome eyes fixed on Connie with admiring directness, 
was idly twisting the ends of her sash as it lay between 
them on the sofa. Connie glanced down at his moving 
fingers. 

“I say, Kenneth, don’t spoil my sash.” 

“Ah, why so particular? Am I injuring it?” 

“You’re mussing it up.” 

He went on playing with it, flapping the loose ends over 
his fingers. 

“How do you think it would look braided ?” 

“Don’t you dare!” 

“No?” He began deliberately plaiting the thin silky 
strands. 

“You’ll have to take it all out again,” Connie threat¬ 
ened. 

“Shall I ?” He raised his eyes for a moment to hers, 
those bold handsome eyes that always discomfited her a 
bit—rather pleasurably—that gave her somehow the feel¬ 
ing of being strangely powerless whenever she encoun¬ 
tered them. 

Disbrow’s gaze swept over her and Connie flushed 
delicately. She felt almost angry with herself; she had 
not meant to blush then. Why should she? Yet some¬ 
thing in Kenneth’s look had momentarily disconcerted 
her, had made her feel rather—rather—she could not 
express it exactly, but rather as if, for an instant, he 
had seen her without any clothes on. 

She reached out her hand and pulled the sash from 
his fingers. He let the silken cords go, but caught her 
hand instead and held it there outspread between them. 

“Why did you blush like that just now?” he asked. 

“Did I?” Connie’s tone was one of innocent surprise. 
“What made you think so?” 

280 


MANY WATERS 


A glint of amusement lighted his eyes. 

“I saw it.” 

“Well—possibly.” 

“And I wondered why.” 

Connie shrugged. 

“How can I tell? Do you think I turn my blushes on 
and off with a little tap inside me?” 

“Yes, that’s about what most people do. Only some 
one else usually turns the tap.” 

Connie turned from him. “Perhaps you struck mine 
by mistake. What’s your interpretation?” 

“I think it was because you thought of something.” 

“Yes? Of what?” 

“I think you thought of how nice it would be if I— 
if I—” 

“Yes?” 

“Well, perhaps I’d better not say it.” 

Connie’s eyes smiled mockingly as she looked back at 
him. 

“Oh, do go on!” 

“You’d like to hear it?” 

“How can I tell that,” she asked ingenuously, “unless 
I know something of what it’s about?” 

“And don’t you?” 

She shook her head emphatically; but Disbrow hesi¬ 
tated. 

He had, for a long time, more or less looked forward 
to some such moment as this; but now that the time was 
come doubts assailed him. Did he really want her ? And 
if so, was he right in supposing that he could if he tried? 
Was his the true interpretation of that unnamable some¬ 
thing in Connie that made men wonder ? Or had he, 
perhaps, made a hideous mistake ? 

He spoke his thought aloud: “If only I knew.” 

281 


MANY WATERS 


“Knew what?” 

“How much in earnest you were.” 

The bold, handsome eyes smiled again in hers, but 
more humbly, less victoriously, more pleadingly. 

Connie looked down. She began plucking out the plait- 
ings from the fringe of her silken sash. She didn’t look 
up or answer. 

“And if there wasn’t your husband to consider,” Dis- 
brow continued. 

“Oh, that!” Connie’s tone was faintly contemptuous. 
“You needn’t worry about Donald. Donald amuses him¬ 
self.” 

An excuse, this? or an invitation? Disbrow leaned 
forward and raised the hand he held to his lips. 

“You make me lose my head when you say things like 
that! I’m not responsible 1” 

An exhilarating little thrill ran all through Connie’s 
body. Those many times when she had felt this man’s 
potent influence came back to her with redoubled force. 
Indeed, she had been feeling it all during his visit. She 
was conscious of a fearful, pleasurable danger. It was 
like walking along the edge of a steep precipice with 
dizzy depths of unplumbed ecstasy below. It would take 
caution and restraint not to throw herself over. 

And perhaps, after all, she did want to throw herself 
over. It was fun flirting with the danger, at any rate. 
Glorious to be able to bring that look, half of timid long¬ 
ing, half of bold possession, into her eyes. She laughed 
low and pleasantly. 

“Ah, you say that to every girl; I know.” 

“Indeed I do not! Can’t you see I don’t even want 
to say it to you?” 

“How disappointing! Why not?” 

“It isn’t the thing to say to you.” 

282 


MANY WATERS 


“You are very virtuous!” 

“Don’t!” he cried. “Don’t taunt me with the fact that 
I am helpless! hopeless! That I musn’t make love to 
you; that it would be the part of a cad to tempt you!” 

She lay back among her cushions and let her eyes 
wander to the open window, beyond which the green 
terrace and the lawn lay shimmering in the deep sun¬ 
light. She raised her hand over her head in a graceful, 
languorous gesture. She looked at him suddenly—dar¬ 
ingly. 

“Tempt me a little,” she said. 

And suddenly all those doubts and scruples and vague 
questionings which he had had concerning her resolved 
themselves into a vast certainty. 

With a little low laugh he caught her to him, pulling 
her over to him along the couch with an urgency almost 
rough. 

Connie pouted; and he laughed again—a laugh of pos¬ 
session. 

“Don’t draw away from me. Stay where you are. I 
like you like that; I want you there. . . . Kiss me. 
. . . Ah, I guessed it then. You do love me. . . ! Let 
yourself go . . . tell me . . . you wanted this . . . ? 
You have known all along I loved you. . . ? Tell me 
then. ... You darling. . . ! You belong to me now. . . .” 

A shadow flitted past the window. They looked up, 
saw Donald crossing the terrace on his way into the 
house, and slid apart. 


2 

Kenneth Disbrow continued to come on frequent visits 
to the Hall. He came when his host was there and when 
he was not. Sometimes there were other guests; some¬ 
times he found Connie alone. And all the time, when- 
283 


MANY WATERS 

ever occasion offered, he and Connie continued their love- 
making. 

It bore at first something of the nature of a daring, 
fascinating game, a matching of wits, a trial of strength 
against strength. As far as Connie was concerned it had 
been, in truth, largely a revolt against the irksome mo¬ 
notony of her surroundings. 

But as time passed on the importance of the issue grew. 
Disbrow became more insistent; his passion was very 
like the real thing. Occasionally he even asked himself 
whether he were not actually in love with Connie. Con¬ 
nie herself felt quite sure of her love for Kenneth. Yet 
all the while they were both conscious of playing up to 
a scene. Comedy or tragedy, which should it be? 

The blow fell on a warm August afternoon. Donald 
was away from home and Connie alone. Disbrow ar¬ 
rived unannounced. There was a strange suppressed ex¬ 
citement in his manner. His eyes, bold and fearless as 
ever, swept Connie with a new meaning. An hour after 
his arrival he told her: 

“Vm going away. Tve my orders at last. We’re going 
over.” 

“Oh, Kenneth!” Connie’s eyes gleamed suddenly soft 
with tears. 

They stood close together in Connie’s little upstairs 
sitting room whither she had taken him to “have a quiet 
talk” before dinner, she said. The fading light of the 
warm summer afternoon filtered in through the frail, 
filmy curtains at the windows. The air was faint with 
odours from the garden mixed with subtle perfumes 
from the little pots and jars on Connie’s dressing table. 
Connie had set the scene to be intimate and provocative, 
but she had not expected this. His words fell like ham¬ 
mer strokes, sharpening their desire for one another, 
284 


MANY WATERS 


making clear their need to hasten. The sense of human 
impotence before the decrees of Fate overpowered them, 
and the futility of human plans struck upon their con¬ 
sciousness. 

“Oh, Kenneth!” she said again. 

He was silent, looking down at the shiny straps of his 
putties. Connie shot a look at him and felt, with a flutter 
of longing, how big and strong and handsome he was. 

As if in answer to her unseen glance Disbrow spoke: 

“You know what it means, Connie. I may not come 
back. This will be the last time I can see you. I won’t 
be able to get another leave. I’m to go back to camp 
to-morrow.” 

A dizzy wave of self-pity swept over her, not love, not 
dread. Almost in a dream she felt Disbrow’s arms come 
about her, felt his breath on her cheek as he drew her 
to him, knew the passionate touch of his lips and felt 
the muscles straining under his khaki coat as he pressed 
her closer and closer to him. 

She leaned away from him looking deep in his eyes. 
He put his two hands on either side of her face to draw 
it up again to his; but she held him off, running her 
hands from his shoulders down his arms. He dropped 
them and caught her hands in his again, catching them 
up to his lips; and again she drew away. But in the end 
she let him kiss her. 

“Connie,” he whispered, “you couldn’t be so cruel as 
to refuse me now! It’s the last time, remember, the last 
time!” 

His eyes burned into hers. Connie faltered. The 
dramatic moment, the witchery, the salt tang of adventure, 
but surely not love, made her whisper softly: 

“Donald’s away. I’m glad. At least we shall have 
to-night together!” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


i 

I T has ever been the part of the cynical novelist to 
harp upon the unimportance of those slight events 
which influence our destiny. One is loath blindly 
to follow this lead—as one is not voluntarily a cynic, but 
the pose is often forced upon one. One struggles, one 
resists, but in the end one yields. Such are the limitations 
of mere tellers of tales. 

Donald Callender came home wet and tired from an im¬ 
portant business trip of several days’ duration, one of 
many such he had taken of late. It was raining heavily 
and the car had failed to meet him at the railway station 
in Thornton as he had ordered. 

After much running about in the wet he found John 
Pennyman to drive him up to the Hall in a rickety Ford 
without side curtains. 

No one seemed to be about the house. He let himself 
in with a key and stood stamping and shaking the wet 
from his hat and shoulders in the big hallway. He was 
not in the most amiable frame of mind. Of any other 
man one would have said he was cross, only Donald so 
seldom let mischances—even that one of getting caught in 
the rain without proper clothing—really put him out of 
temper. No doubt the rain and the discomfort of his 
ride were but preliminary tests of his superiority in that 
respect. One should have a balancing mind. 

A letter addressed to Connie, of which he thought he 
286 


MANY WATERS 


knew the handwriting, lay upon the hall table. Sur¬ 
prisingly it bore the postmark, New York. Disbrow, 
he thought, was at camp beyond Tonomet—indefinitely 
there, it would seem. 

Donald stood looking at it, not overcurious about it, 
when a certain vivid recollection came to him—Connie 
standing in just about this spot in the hall, a brilliant 
fire blazing on the hearth, and the almost-knowledge he 
had later gained that she had, a moment before, thrown 
a letter to him, Marian’s letter, on the flames. The whole 
little scene was clear before his memory. 

Donald was not petty in spirit; but just now he was 
wet and uncomfortable. Ordinarily he would not have 
dreamed of such a thing as reading Connie’s letter with¬ 
out her permission, but his present mood tempted him 
to do so. It was the same trick Connie had played on 
him years ago. 

He had not meant to take any revenge for that old 
misdeed—if, indeed, he had been right in his assumption 
that there had been one—but with such an apt retaliation 
ready to his hand he wavered. 

And where was Connie, anyway? She should have 
been here to greet him; she must have heard the car drive 
up. Doubtless because she was too indifferent. She had 
been acting rather strangely of late—ever since little Dick 
had come—cold and unaffectionate, as if she still bore 
him a grudge for that event. He decided he would pay 
her back by just glancing at the letter. 

On the instant Donald ripped it open and began to 
read. He stood there for a long time, very quiet, very 
interested; so interested that a little trickle of water 
ran from his hat down into his neck but he did not no¬ 
tice it. 

At last he put the letter, crumpled up, into his pocket 
287 


MANY WATERS 


and went upstairs, very quietly still, so as not to attract 
Connie’s attention. 


2 

An hour later, bathed and dressed and with the letter 
still in his pocket, Donald presented himself before 
Connie. 

She lifted a passive cheek for him to kiss, but Donald 
apparently did not see it, for he crossed at once to the 
far side of the room. Connie was content. She was not 
conscious of any particular desire for Donald’s embraces. 

“Been lonely while I was gone?” he asked. 

Connie shrugged. 

“Oh, so, so! I had some things to do.” 

She had not noticed anything odd in Donald’s man¬ 
ner. There was a pause. 

“Any one here?” 

For the fraction of a second Connie’s eyebrows con¬ 
tracted. 

“Here ? How do you mean ?” 

“I thought perhaps Disbrow might have run over.” 

“No, he wasn’t here,” Connie lied readily. An instant 
later she thought, “That’s a mistake; any of the servants 
might tell him if he were to ask; I shouldn’t have said 
that.” 

But Donald did not need to ask the servants. He 
turned back from the window. His face was rather white 
and set. 

“Then why does he say he recalls your last time to¬ 
gether—so short a while ago? He certainly wasn’t here 
the week before. How does it happen that he fancies 
he was here?” 

“How—do you mean? Where?” Connie faltered. 

“Here, in this letter.” 


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He held it out to her, and Connie snatched it from 
his hand. It was not overlight in the room but even in 
the dimness damning phrases and sentences leapt out from 
the page to meet her startled eyes—“Good-bye ... I 
shall always remember your lips, your eyes ... ! the 
way you clung to me . . . the fact that at last you gave 
yourself—” 

Connie closed her eyes dizzily. “Kenneth’s a fool!” 
she thought angrily, as under Donald’s watching eyes the 
man’s folly forced itself painfully upon her conscious¬ 
ness. She glanced up at her husband and put the be¬ 
traying letter defensively behind her. 

“You’ve read this?” 

Donald smiled, a hard, set smile, and slowly nodded. 

“How dare you read my letters ?” Connie’s eyes flamed 
with indignation. “A pretty thing that is to do! What 
did you expect to find? You must have suspected some¬ 
thing or you wouldn’t have sneaked my letter. Well, now 
you know!” 

Donald drew back a step. He felt stunned by her 
words; but somehow not hurt as he should have been. 
It was as if he were struggling desperately to feel hurt. 

“You mean you acknowledge it?” he gasped. 

“Well,” said Connie sullenly, “if you’ve read this, then 
I suppose you know. You must know. Kenneth’s a fool 
to write like that, but who would expect you to steal my 
letters!” 

“It’s true, then. I did think you would deny it at least, 
Connie,” Donald said slowly. 

She laughed mirthlessly. “What for? So you could 
have the pleasure of forcing the truth out of me. I’ve 
fooled you there, too, apparently. Yes, it’s true. What 
are you going to do about it?” 

“I—I don’t know, yet.” Donald could have laughed 
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at his own pusillanimity. Where was that sublime in¬ 
dignation which made men kill women under like provo¬ 
cation? Not a trace of it could he feel; only that stunned 
surprise and a certain lingering incredulity. 

“It’s your own fault. You oughtn’t to read my let¬ 
ters,” said Connie slowly. She had been busy tearing 
the offending missive into little shreds, and now tossed 
them into the wastebasket. The fire in her seemed to 
have died out. She was very quiet, almost submissive. 

Without answering her he turned and went, a trifle 
unsteadily, out of the room and downstairs to his own 
room on the ground floor. He was still wondering 
vaguely what he ought to do, trying to view the matter 
from all sides. 

Connie was right. What had he expected? After 
all, it was funny if you looked at it in that way. He 
had meant to do Connie an ill turn and instead the blow 
had fallen on himself. It was true as Connie had said— 
he had himself to blame. There was something to be 
said for her. After all, one should have a balanced mind. 

But to have her admit the charge so freely! The ef¬ 
frontery of the thing took his breath away. Why had 
he let Disbrow come there like that—so often, and whether 
he himself were there or not? He had been careless; he 
should have looked after his honour better. That was 
a point for Connie. One must weigh and judge. A thing 
like this couldn’t be settled all in a moment. 

3 

Connie did not come down to dinner. She complained 
of a headache and sent down her excuses by a maid. 
Donald didn’t care. He was glad she had the sense not 
to present herself before him. 

He had to think what to do. Donald ate his lonely 
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dinner still pondering the question. It revolved in his 
mind like a grievous problem that had to be solved. He 
tried to think of other things, but his mind kept com¬ 
ing back with fatal insistence to the one subject. He 
found himself thinking how desirable Connie was. 

He spent the evening in the library. He had to think 
what to do. Once he went to the front door and looked 
out ; it was still raining heavily—too bad to venture out. 
The rain fell in great gusts that hissed and spattered on 
the ground. 

With a gesture of disgust he closed the door and went 
back to the library, but before he did so he went into 
the dining room and poured himself a large drink of 
whiskey. With the glass in his hand he came back to 
his old seat by the desk. 

He sat there with his eyes straight before him, gravely 
ruminating, thinking of Connie and the thing she had 
told him. Did she love Disbrow? He shrugged. He 
thought not, but one could never tell. 

Odd, disjointed reflections passed through his mind. 
This man Disbrow, had he not once or twice suspected 
him? Or had he trusted completely in Connie’s inno¬ 
cence? Well, it was only once, and Disbrow was gone, 
probably for good. And he found himself remembering 
again Connie’s charm and attractiveness. His mind went 
back to the night of his marriage. . . . 

His glass was empty. He rose, went out into the din¬ 
ing room and refilled it. He tossed off the drink stand¬ 
ing there at the sideboard. He came out into the hall 
again. The stairs rose a shadowy archway above him. 
He recalled seeing Connie on them a hundred times, her 
delicate draperies fluttering against the banisters, her soft, 
little white hand on the smooth mahogany rail. 

He went to the foot of the stairs and stood there 
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listening. There was no sound from up above. After a 
moment’s hesitation he went, a trifle unsteadily, up the 
stairs. 

Outside her room he paused. A crack of light showed 
under the door. She was still up, then. He went on 
down the hall to his own room, the one he had had ever 
since little Dick’s advent. 

He did not turn on the light but stood for some time 
at the darkened window, watching the raindrops scutter- 
ing against the pane and sweeping in gusty sheets over 
the flat porch roof. After a while he thought of Connie 
again. 

With a half shake of impatience, he left the upstairs 
room and started to go back to the library. He would 
get a book or magazine and make himself read. 

He had to pass Connie’s door again on the way down. 
Before it he paused again. The crack of light beneath 
the door had vanished. The glossy handle of the 
knob flickered before him. Of course she would have 
locked it. 

He turned the handle and opened the door. The room 
was in semi-darkness. Over in one corner the bed loomed 
shadowy and large. She was not in the room. The thin 
acrid odour of a lotion she sometimes used on her hair 
permeated the air. A light shining in from the dressing 
room and the sound of running water, told him she was 
there preparing for the night. 

He closed the door again guiltily and went downstairs. 
He found his way to the sideboard and poured himself 
another drink—a good, stiff one. He swallowed it hastily 
and went back to the library. There he sat down and 
went over again the events of the afternoon, slowly, 
thoughtfully; and all the time Connie appeared to him 
more and more desirable. His hands moved restlessly, 
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the fingers opening and closing upon one another. He 
thought of Connie continuously without interruption. 

The whiskey seemed to have sharpened his perceptions; 
he could visualise with great distinctness. And more and 
more he could see the big white bed in the corner of the 
room upstairs. He thought of it until it began to grow 
larger and larger. ... It seemed to crowd out the rest 
of the furniture. . . . 

He went back to the sideboard and poured himself an¬ 
other drink. 

At length he stumbled upstairs again. He went past 
the door of the bedroom. Then he turned back. He 
stood uncertain outside the door. He seemed to see the 
room clearly in spite of the closed door between; and 
the white bed in the comer loomed larger than ever. 

He thought he would just try the door. Of course 
she would have locked it by now. Still he would just 
try. . . . 

The knob yielded to his hand. It slipped softly under 
his fingers. The door slid gently open. All was dark 
within, but he could still see the bed standing, white and 
shadowy, in the corner. . . . 

4 

Donald and Connie sat opposite each other at break¬ 
fast. They were late this morning. Instinctively they 
avoided each other’s eyes. Donald devoted himself to 
his coffee, pretending not to see the telegram lying be¬ 
side Connie’s plate. 

With a half apology she tore it open and glanced over 
the contents. Having read it she tore the yellow slip 
into shreds and slid them under her plate. Characteristi¬ 
cally she took the bull by the horns. 

“It’s from Kenneth. He has sailed. It’s good-bye.” 
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There was silence. A maid came in with fresh toast. 
Donald took a slice, Connie refused. She waited for the 
girl to retire, then spoke again: 

“For the rest,” she said, “I suppose we may as well go 
on as we were.” 

He looked at her, perplexed, slightly puzzled. After 
all, there was no reason— 

“Yes,” he said slowly, “I suppose we might as well go 
on.” 

After all, one should have a balanced mind! 


CHAPTER XIX 


i 

M ARIAN and Donald had been riding together 
back into the country, past Lone Tree Hill and 
the pleasant fields that clustered below it. It 
was still early afternoon. The sun rode high in the 
heavens. Whitridge and its surrounding country lay 
basking in the mellow sunlight. Summer was not yet 
over. 

They circled up past the crest of the hill which gave 
them, now and again, a far glimpse of the sea; and drew 
up, pausing for a moment, just on the first slope which 
looked towards Whitridge. 

From somewhere down in the valley came the sound 
of music. A sleepy breeze fluttered the grasses at their 
feet. A row of wispy clouds flawed the impeccable blue 
of the horizon. 

It was very quiet here on the hillside, only the hum¬ 
ming of bees in the thick grass and the drums and fifes 
of the distant band, with a faint clicking of Nance’s bridle 
now and then as she tossed her head and pricked her ears 
for the distant music. 

They listened for a few minutes in silence. 

“How pretty that is,” Marian said at length. 

“Yes; sounds attractive from here. Wonder what it 
is. Some recruiting band, I suppose.” 

They were silent again till Marian said: “War is a 
wonderfully inspiring thing.” 

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“Yes,” he replied, “when they keep the band playing. 
But that’s the trouble; they don’t play all the time. If 
they did that I could go into battle joyfully—any time, 
if the band kept up. But I’d want to run when they 
stopped.” 

She smiled. She was not moved by the suggestion of 
cowardice contained in his words. She knew him better 
than that. 

Nance stood very still; Marian sat up very straight 
on her back. The little row of white clouds hung sta¬ 
tionary in their places. The sound of the distant music 
fluctuated, coming nearer as the breeze blew that way, 
fading as it passed. 

“How quiet and peaceful it is! How different from 
what it must be over there.” 

He nodded. His eyes were fixed on the line of blue 
hills beyond. 

“Marian, do you sometimes wonder why I haven’t 
gone?” 

“No,” she said, “why should I wonder?” 

“Well, there’s Mark, for instance; he didn’t hesitate.” 

She ran her fingers over her horse’s neck and smoothed 
a burr from Nance’s mane. 

“Mark didn’t have a wife and child.” 

“Do you think it’s any easier to die because of that? 
I don’t. All the more reason he should have his turn 
at it. You might say that I had had mine.” 

There was a pause while the triumphant strains of music 
drifted nearer. Nance shook her head and rattled the 
curb chains. 

“You don’t condemn me? Not a little?” 

“Why should I judge?” she asked gravely. 

“Tell me, if you were a man, you’d go?” 

“Yes, but—” 


296 


MANY WATERS 

He laughed. “I’m not trying to force you into a con¬ 
fession. It’s of no consequence. I was only wondering 
what another person’s views would be.” 

She coloured faintly. “I have no right to have any 
views on such a subject. You might have a thousand 
reasons for not going, you might not have any reason 
except that you didn’t want to go. Whose business is it 
but your own? Who, that isn’t you, is capable of judg¬ 
ing?” 

“Oh, if it comes to that, I don’t suppose any one wants 
to go.” 

“Oh, yes, they do. I’d want to—not from any sense 
of duty or even love of adventure—you may think it’s 
easy for me to say that being a girl— But how can I 
tell? Perhaps it’s because I’d have so little to lose if 
anything happened to me. But with you it—it’s dif¬ 
ferent !” 

He looked at her and his eyes were unusually gentle. 
A smile, half thoughtful amusement, half tenderness, 
flickered on his lips. 

“I’m afraid you’ve always given me credit for more 
courage than I actually possess. Of course, I might have 
to venture into the war, might be drafted; but if I weren’t, 
tell me, Marian, would you want me to go?” 

She hesitated longer than she meant before she said, 
very softly: “No.” 

He was still watching her with that unusual expres¬ 
sion. 

“By that,” she added quickly, “I don’t mean that I’d 
keep you back. I’m assuming, of course, that I was in 
a position to influence you. I should be proud and glad 
—in a way—if you went; but I shouldn’t want you to 
g°” 

It was not Nance’s sudden restless movement, but 
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the look in Donald’s eyes that made her say a second 
later: 

“I think we’d better be getting back. I’ve a com¬ 
mittee meeting at four at Mrs. Wetherell’s. I promised 
to be there to arrange about some Red Cross work. I’m 
sorry.” 

He sighed, but followed her down the hill towards the 
village, forgetting the music and the still, summer day, 
the grassy hillside and his own idle dreams. 

Coming from this way they approached Whitridge 
from the Thornton side. Almost at the entrance to the 
village they came upon a small mass of people clustered 
together along the road. 

“What’s this?” Donald asked. 

A policeman—the only one in Whitridge—had held up, 
with a magisterial hand, three or four automobiles. Some 
men were marching down the street on the left-hand 
side. 

Donald and Marian drew over to the side of the road 
and pressed forward even with the first car. The police¬ 
man, Tim Murphy, saw them and nodded affably. He 
was rather impressed with a sense of his own importance 
to-day. It was not often he had the authority to stop 
strange cars in Whitridge. 

Suddenly the band broke out afresh. And down the 
street the boys came marching, young boys, holding 
their heads high, marching with quick, unaccustomed 
steps. 

“They’re on their way to camp. They’re the new 
soldiers,” some one whispered. 

The sun shone hot and steady; the green trees rustled 
overhead and made dark patterns on the white road and 
on the shoulders of the boys as they marched by. Young 
boys with fresh, pink cheeks and clear, courageous eyes. 
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Many of them were leaving Whitridge or Tonomet for 
the first time. They were gay with a strange suppressed 
gaiety, excited, as if it were all a great adventure. They 
swung themselves proudly along, almost swaggering; they 
felt themselves the heroes of the hour. So they were, but 
afterward . . . ! 

Marian sat upright on her horse, a quick, eager sym¬ 
pathy stirring in her heart as she watched them march 
by, her eyes bright with unshed tears. 

Gallant lads and food for powder— 

Ah! the pity of it, and yet the glory of it! 

Tim Murphy, the little policeman, was wild with ex¬ 
citement. He could not keep up with the salutations and 
adieus showered upon him. “Good-bye, Tim!” they called 
to him, “good-bye! Take care of yourself!” They all 
knew him. Why shouldn’t they ? They had grown up in 
Whitridge; had lived there all their lives. Their relatives 
and friends were there in the crowd which straggled after 
them. They were watching with proud, admiring eyes. 
They were joyfully acclaiming their own: “There’s 
Dick! There’s Harry!” It was wonderful! 

Yet the outstanding figure of them all was little Tim 
Murphy. Was he not there before them, even now hold¬ 
ing back a flock of rich motor cars, proudly, with over¬ 
bearing greatness, to let them go by? 

It was their day—theirs! and they held their heads 
high and looked about them with lofty, jovial glances. 
The farewell meeting in the Town Hall had been for 
them, the speeches, the music, the cheering line of spec¬ 
tators was for them. It was all theirs—to-day! 

They had passed; they were gone down the long, shaded 
street towards Thornton and the railway station. Tim 
299 


MANY WATERS 


Murphy, looking suddenly of no importance, like a toy 
balloon with the wind let out of it, signed with a melan¬ 
choly gesture to the traffic to proceed. 

Marian and Donald drew well over to the side of the 
road. The little cluster of cars bustled by them and were 
gone on their several ways. The two riders walked their 
horses slowly through the clouds of dust. Tim Murphy 
shook his head and waved a depressed salute. The music 
of the band still sounded, growing fainter. 

Donald did not look at the girl by his .side, but he knew 
how bright and shining were her eyes, in spite of the little 
droop of her lips. 

“By George! It gets one, doesn’t it, a scene like 
that?” 

She was silent. She was thinking, “I wonder how 
many of those boys will come back? They’re so young. 
It’s all so gay. They don’t realize—” 

They rode on silently towards Marian’s cottage. At 
length Donald spoke again: 

“Do you know, I’ve never seen it quite in that light be¬ 
fore. Of course, I’ve seen other men go, known it and 
considered it, but it never impressed me the way this has 
—never brought it home to me in the same way. It really 
is glorious!” 

“There’s another side than the glory,” said Marian 
slowly, a weight gathering in her heart. 

He laughed and threw back his head. 

“After all, it’s the big show!” 

They did not speak on the subject again until they had 
turned in at the driveway of the cottage and ridden up to 
the porch. He lingered a while, standing with the horses 
below the steps, patting Nance’s nose and admiring the 
late flowers in the little garden before the house. Marian, 
watching him from the steps above, thought she had 
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never seen him so handsome, so debonair, so unconcerned 
with the seriousness of life. 

He looked up with a half smile playing upon his lips. 
“Marian, do you know what I’m going to do? Enlist. 
That absurd little procession to-day decided me.” 

“Enlist?” she repeated in a dizzy surprise, “enlist?” 
And suddenly she knew what it was she had subcon¬ 
sciously feared a while ago. “When?” 

“Oh, at once, of course. What’s the use of waiting?” 

“But—but not like this. Not yet. You haven’t con¬ 
sidered—’* 

He laughed. “Don’t have to. That’s the way I do 
things. Of course, I don’t know just how soon I can 
get off. Oh, I don’t mean I’m going to-night! I dare 
say Connie’ll raise the devil! But I’m off. I’ll come to 
say good-bye, though. I’ll go as soon as they’ll let me, 
but I’ve no doubt there’ll be the devil and all of delays. 
Even clever as I am I don’t believe they will give me com¬ 
mand of the army at once! Well, so long. Wish me 
luck!” 

“I do,” she said. “Indeed I do!” 

“And don’t let’s talk about it any more, there’s a good 
girl. Good-bye!” 

He was gone with a clattering of hoofs down the drive. 
Marian led Nance around to the stables. She went into 
the house by the back door, a dull, heavy sensation mark¬ 
ing her footsteps. Yet underneath quivered a strange, 
vibrating excitement. She wondered what Connie would 
say when she heard the news, and was glad he had 
told herself first. She was proud and glad, she said over 
and over. It was exactly what she had said to Mark, 
months before; but somehow her present emotion was 
different—more acute. Nothing could ever keep Donald 
from holding first place in her heart! 

3 01 


MANY WATERS 


2 

Donald Callender was as good as his word. Less than 
a month found him away from Whitridge on the com¬ 
mencement of his great adventure. 

As he had prophesied, Connie raised the devil, but Don¬ 
ald laughed and followed his own inclination. His ap¬ 
proaching departure gave Connie an increased apprecia¬ 
tion of his value, yet even her newly reawakened affection 
and endearments failed to turn him from his resolve. He 
knew Connie pretty well now; a little fond, a little vain, 
wholly egotistical and frankly selfish; small wonder that 
her desires influenced him very slightly. 

Connie had many fears—among them that Colonel 
Callender might want to come and stay with her when 
Donald was gone. He had taken such a ridiculous fancy 
to little Dick! It was most annoying and inconvenient. 
Connie had a great deal to worry her at this time, and 
complained bitterly. 

Yet Donald laughed and smilingly protested that she 
would find matters much the same with himself gone or 
there in Whitridge with her. He would take no really 
serious view of the situation. 

He went, as he promised, to say good-bye to 
Marian. Yet there was nothing particularly romantic in 
the simple farewell. Aunt Julia was present at the in¬ 
terview, and although Marian walked with him down to 
the gate, no word was spoken which might not have been 
heard by any one. 

When he was gone she thought of him constantly. He 
wrote to her and she enjoyed his letters, looking forward 
to them with eagerness, both before and after he went 
to France. A few extracts from these letters will suf¬ 
fice : 


302 


MANY WATERS 


“It’s a queer life but rather jolly on the whole [he 
wrote]. I’ve no doubt it will get tiresome after a while, 
but so far the novelty of it all amuses me. . . . You 
should see me drilling! I’m a wonder at it! As for 
taking orders you won't believe it but I fairly eat ’em 
up. You wouldn’t know me. In giving them I’ve ac¬ 
quired a rasp in my throat that strikes terror to the stout¬ 
est heart in the regiment!” 

And somewhat later: 

“Hurrah! Here we are in France at last, though I’m 
not allowed to tell you where. Does it surprise you to 
know that Mark and I are in the same battalion? Or 
would you call me bromidic if I remarked that "it’s a 
small world’? Well, we are together here, although I 
don’t see a great deal of him. He’s a cut above me, you 
know, on account of rank, so I daren’t presume. I know 
his servant, though.” 

And later still: 

“Do you know, I feel like being tremendously senti¬ 
mental to-night. No doubt you’ll think me a puling fool, 
but if anything were to happen to me (what a euphe¬ 
mistic way of saying it that is, isn’t it? Rather absurd 
if you stop to consider it!), however, if it should, I wish 
you’d keep an eye on little Dick. Also, try to cheer my 
father up when he comes to Whitridge. I know he misses 
me. 


But most of his letters were in a lighter vein. Mark 
wrote her, too, very often; long letters full of news of 
the camp and of the march, clever, humorous sketches of 
French village life, glimpses of the everyday habits and 
303 


MANY WATERS 


characteristics of the men; weird, unnatural tales of the 
rats and the mud and the dirt, that made light of the 
discomforts yet painted most graphic pictures to the mind 
of his reader. She looked forward with eagerness to 
both their letters. 

She did not know that Donald wrote to her far more 
often than he did to Connie. At home Connie busied 
herself with a little flutter of revived interest in war 
matters. She was on numerous committees and always 
appeared at the head of lists of patrons for this or that 
money-making scheme of various philanthropic bodies. 
But the steady work of preparing surgical dressings, of 
directing the actual working activities of the great organ¬ 
isations in the little community in which they lived fell 
upon Marian. She was busy early and late, devoting her¬ 
self unceasingly to the tasks she had undertaken. Aunt 
Julia complained that she never saw her any more. 

Yet, though she worked hard and kept herself con¬ 
stantly occupied, her mind was often far away, wandering 
with Mark and Donald along the white French roads. 
When the letters came it was a day of rejoicing, a holiday, 
especially when she saw that the envelope bore Donald’s 
long, irregular script; then her heart leapt. 

Not that his brief notes were ever remarkably personal 
in tone. They told her little of himself or of his mental 
reaction to the serious side of war. Only once did he 
make any but the most casual reference to Connie. It 
was not long after the letter in which he spoke of little 
Dick. 

“Do you know, I’ve never cared for anything very 
much [he wrote], although I thought I did for Connie— 
once. It’s been my trouble, that indifference. I never 
could care enough, never feel a really vital passion. I feel 
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MANY WATERS 


it for the moment, but it never stays. I used to think 
that a virtue—one should always be able to see all sides 
of a question. But I wonder, now, if that’s not a mistake, 
if people don’t get more out of life when they feel 
strongly on this or that subject. Doubtless they suffer 
more, but perhaps they also enjoy more. However, I’ve 
no kick coming on that score! No one could ever enjoy 
life more than I have and do.” 

And in his next letter: 

“They say our show is due next week. Hope so, I’m 
sure. We’ve been waiting long enough. We’re all eager 
and on our toes with excitement. So long! Wish me 
luck and remember about little Dick. Give him a kiss 
from me.” 

There followed a long silence. 

Connie went about her ordinary routine of life, gay and 
smiling, running in to Thornton to parties, dashing here 
and there on this or that important mission. She joined 
the motor corps and bought herself a most fetching uni¬ 
form; and although she always took the chauffeur along 
to drive for her, the costume was becoming and an im¬ 
mense success. People said of her, “How wonderfully 
young Mrs. Callender keeps up in spite of the anxiety. 
Such a good sport!” 

Marian passed her one day when Connie was on her 
way to Thornton for a tea dance at Maisie Littell’s (the 
proceeds were to go to a local war charity). Connie was 
dressed in her latest and most expensive frock. She 
stopped the car for a moment to call to Marian: 

“Aren’t you coming to Maisie’s tea dance? No? Why, 
where’s your patriotism? Tea dances are expected to win 
the war, you know!” 


305 


MANY WATERS 


Marian smiled and shook her head. “I couldn’t go 
to-day. Too many other things.’’ 

“Ah! but you should! I’m afraid you’re a slacker, my 
dear!” 

She laughed, waved her hand and was gone. 

Marian went home. She went to her own little room 
over the garden and read again Donald’s last letter from 
the front. Those fateful words, “They say our show is 
due next week,” seemed to stare at her from the page. 

She walked over to the window and stood looking out. 
The garden lay serene in the sunlight. It was all so 
peaceful and quiet and over there— 

She dropped to her knees by the window, covering her 
face with her hands. While Connie was dancing, Marian 
was praying for Donald’s safety, praying earnestly, blind¬ 
ly, unknowing that at that moment, while the troops swept 
triumphantly over St. Quentin, he was lying in a broken 
trench, dead, with a bullet through his breast. 

For once the God who looked after him slept 

3 

It was Mrs. Jerrold of the hotel who told Marian the 
news, running out from the house with her apron wound 
about her arms. 

“Excuse my appearance,” she said. “I’m just getting 
the baking in; I’m all over flour. But I see you passing 
through the kitchen window and I thought I just must 
run out and learn if Miss Pritchard’s got the news yet. 
It’s awful, ain’t it? A pity—’’ 

Marian nodded, turned from her and fled towards the 
cottage. 

As she walked up the drive Aunt Julia rose from her 
chair by the window. 

“What is it, child?” 


306 


MANY WATERS 


But Marian passed her in silence, going up the stairs, 
not rapidly but slowly, as if her limbs were weighted. She 
went into her own room, closed the door and locked it. 

Aunt Julia hesitated a moment. Then being a wise 
woman she went back to her place. After a while she 
went out and strolled in the garden. 

4 

All Whitridge had the news before very long—the 
other, that still greater news that followed the first stun¬ 
ning announcement of Donald Callender’s death, and 
thrilled the little place with the sense of unaccustomed 
importance. All Whitridge heard and discussed it and 
marvelled. Donald’s colonel had written and Mark’s 
major. Gradually the whole story permeated the little 
village. The Reverend Paul went among his parishioners, 
severe, unbending as ever; but in his heart there burned 
a fierce, exultant pride, stern, unspoken; and Cynthia 
Wetherell grew radiant and strong with happiness, the 
years seemed to drop away from her like a second bloom¬ 
ing of youth. 

To Marian the months brought a never ceasing vision, 
like a nightmare that had to be lived out. Night after 
night when the lights were out in the cottage and dark¬ 
ness lay like a cloak over sea and dune and land, when 
the winter winds tore through the front garden and 
when the first spring flowers shed their perfume abroad, 
she lived through it again. 

Whitridge and its familiar sights and sounds faded. 
The long Thornton road became instead a cluttered, mired 
way crowded with soldiers. Instead of the peaceful 
meadows round about, Marian saw the bleak fields of 
Flanders, torn and desolate, with the shells flying over. 

Daylight, misty and wan. The tense waiting. The 
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MANY WATERS 


moments of suspense. Sudden silence of the roaring 
guns and the quick, eager rush over the top. Donald 
going ahead of his men, jaunty, debonair in the midst 
of the fury. 

The guns again like the crash of many thunders. The 
shrill scream of shells whining overhead. Guns that 
speak from the opposite trenches. Death! Dismay! 
Confusion; and the order to retreat. 

The sun high in the heavens now—a hot sun, cruel, 
on an upturned face— 

Night. A night like a carnival of stars. A still night, 
unnaturally quiet. A hidden moon, lustreless, swathed in 
a veil of purple midst. Night, dark in spite of the misty 
heavens; lighted only with the occasional flare of the 
star shells. Night, vaguely, mystically beautiful, merci¬ 
fully hiding the scars of the day. 

Low murmurs in the tumbled and broken trenches; 
eager offers; protests; then a close-wrapped figure climb¬ 
ing silently over the parapet— 

Mark, for it is Mark, creeping out, creeping out; lying 
flat at a sudden alarm; pistol in hand, creeping on, creep¬ 
ing on, only a moving shadow in the shadowy darkness. 
Mark pausing; stooping; searching—a muttered* groan— 

Mark returning; a bigger shadow this time, part of it 
limp and motionless. A heavy weight which he shifts as 
tenderly as possible to ease the pain. A shadow that 
moans again before the slow journey is over. 

The goal at last; the first line of trenches. Eager 
hands stretched out to help. And at last, Donald Callender, 
lying, white and broken, but smiling in spite of the pain. 
White lips that gasp, “Good work, Mark!” before the 
eyes close again. . . . 

Deft surgeons bending over the still form in the shel¬ 
tered glare of the hospital dugout. The slow shaking of 
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MANY WATERS 


heads. Donald’s laugh—he could still laugh even then. 
The call for Mark, and Mark bending over, tense, wait¬ 
ing for the slow, laboured words: 

“You’re a good sort, Mark—the best in the world. 
Marian ought to know. Tell her I understand now— 
I’m sorry—’’ 

Night; and the stillness of night settling over the 
trenches. Night, cold, remote, passionless. Faint streaks 
of dawn; and the vigil ended— 

Mark himself had written her those last words of 
Donald’s. “I happened to be with him when he died,” 
he wrote her modestly. Did he guess how much those 
few, broken words meant to her ? It was resignation and 
peace—a strange, inexplicable peace. And she would 
have been less than woman had she not acknowledged a 
thrill of triumph in the thought that, at the last, it was 
of herself and not of Connie that Donald had thought 
and spoken. He had rewarded her at last for that eager, 
generous love which youth offers with open, outstretched 
hands—he had left her peace and a memory untouched 
with bitterness. 


CHAPTER XX 


i 


ONNIE had made the interesting discovery that 



black was becoming to her. At first she had 


hated the idea of donning it, and had written a 
hasty note to her mother consulting her as to the advisa¬ 
bility of omitting the custom. Mrs. Leveredge replied 
with equal celerity counseling immediate conformity 
with the established modes. Mourning, she explained, 
need never be morose or morbid looking; it could, indeed, 
on the right type of person be extremely degage. Made 
and kept in proper style it often lent an added note of 
interest to a woman’s appearance. She need not, of 
course, point out to her dear Connie the extreme fitness 
and propriety of such garments for a widow—particu¬ 
larly a young and attractive widow, and the protection 
that they afforded to one so situated. 

Connie, who had half prepared a fictitious remembered 
conversation of Donald’s in which he had mentioned that 
he never wanted to see her in black, abandoned the no¬ 
tion on receipt of her mother’s letter and obediently fol¬ 
lowed the older woman’s suggestions. Her virtue had its 
own reward in the perfectly astonishing becomingness 
of the aforementioned mourning garments. Every one 
agreed that black was of all colors the best suited to her 
beauty, setting off her charming form and rare colour¬ 
ing to perfection. Connie herself was delighted with the 
result. 


3 10 


MANY WATERS 

From the above-mentioned details it is not to be in¬ 
ferred that Connie did not suffer an extraordinary grief 
at Donald’s death, or that the loss of her husband did not 
at once plunge her into a depth of despair from which 
it seemed for a time impossible for her to rise. It did; 
Connie was passionate in her emotions; after the first 
shock was over she became immersed in a melancholy 
almost unbearable—a deep and violent self-pity. Her 
grief was intense, knew no bounds. Over and over she 
complained that she hadn’t wanted him to go! What 
were they thinking of to kill her husband, her husband 1 
She was the most miserable of women! Whose sorrow 
was equal to hers? 

But gradually, as the force of her emotions spent it¬ 
self, as the first flush of her grief died away, she bright¬ 
ened. Every one was marvellously kind to her; she was, 
of course, more or less of a heroine in local eyes. No 
woman, young and pretty as she, could be placed in this 
romantic position without awakening a thrill of interest 
in the minds of those about her. The result was flatter¬ 
ing. There could be nothing more agreeable to Connie 
than to be an object of interest; her egotism satisfied 
itself; her vanity approved. There is no doubt that her 
grief was real while it lasted, but her grief was for her¬ 
self, not for Donald, and therefore curable. 

Not so in the case of another member of the family. 
One day a few weeks after the news of Donald’s death, 
old Colonel Callender appeared unexpectedly at the Hall. 

He found Connie just going out. He greeted her 
with a considerate tenderness. She returned his advances 
with an odd pretext of affection. After all, they must 
stand by each other, she said. She was full of soft and 
delicate assurances, but was so very sorry that matters 
in Thornton needing her attention must call her away. 
3ii 


MANY WATERS 


But she was sure the dear Colonel would understand. 
Donald would have wanted her to keep up. She smiled 
pathetically into the old, weary eyes. He hastened to re¬ 
assure and encourage her. 

She had, in truth, not meant to go out so early, but 
she had seen him arriving from an upper window, and 
had hastily donned hat and gloves in which to greet him, 
lest she should be delayed. But of this the Colonel guessed 
nothing. When he assured her that he would get along 
all right, she replied rather vaguely, that she didn’t know 
whether any one was in. The maids, however, if they 
were there, would get him anything he required. 

Old Colonel Callender disclaimed the need for services 
of any sort. He had just wanted, he said, to look over a 
few old things in the attic. It wasn’t at all necessary for 
any one to look after him. Connie must go on just as if 
he were not there. He might very probably be gone 
again before she got back. It was really only on a whim 
that he had run down. There must be no fuss made. If 
he were to disarrange her plans in any way it would be 
the greatest pity—so little had his visit been preconsidered. 

Connie gave him a half smile intended to be delicately 
pathetic, and left him. The old man looked after her 
dainty, black-clad figure and sighed. Poor little girl! 
Poor little girl! To be left a widow so young! And so 
game about it, too! What was that she had said ? That 
Donald would have wanted her to keep up. She was 
right about that. Donald would have wanted them all to 
keep up for his sake. That was Donald’s way. Always 
cheery! Always game! A true gentleman! 

With a hand that strove bravely to still the trembling 
lips the old man turned and walked slowly back along 
the hall and up the stairs. At the top of the stairs a 
desire came to him to look into his own old room; but 
312 


MANY WATERS 


it was Connie’s now and the door was shut. He passed 
on with a sigh to the back of the house. 

In spite of his sympathy for her, he was glad that 
Connie had gone and left him alone like this—alone to 
pursue those fleeting fancies, the memory of which had 
brought him back here. He must be alone; he wanted to 
be alone. Yet was he? 

Not quite alone, for as he climbed the steep, narrow 
stairs of the attic, a little figure kept pace beside him, a 
little slender hand in his and small feet that made no 
sound on the creaking old stairs. It followed him over 
to the pile of trunks and boxes in the northwest corner, 
and looked with the old man out through the blurred 
pane at the farthest window; yet it said no word, was not 
even visible to human sight. Only the old man knew. 

Colonel Callender gazed long at the thin line of light 
in the western sky before he turned back to the boxes and 
the old trunks. Then he began to pull them about with 
vague, ineffectual hands, dragging this one forward, shov¬ 
ing that one back, opening and closing the lids restlessly, 
glancing at the contents as if he were searching for some¬ 
thing—something—what? He shook his old head 
thoughtfully. Impossible to say. 

Yet he continued the search. He commenced pulling 
out the contents of some of the boxes, stray bits of cloth¬ 
ing, toys and thumbed and worn books, relics of bygone 
days, mementoes of the boy he had loved. He pulled 
them out, one by one, turning them over in his old hands 
that shook in spite of himself. Donald would have 
wanted him to be game! 

There was a kite—quite new— It had apparently never 
been used, but laid away carefully. And suddenly he 
remembered the day he had brought it home for the boy. 
The whole scene came back to him—the boy’s delight 
313 


MANY WATERS 

tempered with a discreet reserve—Don was always a 
sober little fellow! 

They had meant to go out and fly the kite that after¬ 
noon but something had interfered. What was it? Oh, 
yes, his mother had wanted Donald to drive with her, had 
insited upon carrying the boy off on some stupid expe¬ 
dition or other. It had been a perfect day for flying a 
kite—good strong wind, everything right; and they had 
had to let it all go by the board. A shame! 

And how well he remembered it all—even Donald’s 
good-natured, “Never mind, Dad! We’ll do it another 
day.’’ Don was always good-natured—a sweet disposi¬ 
tion. He hadn’t appeared to mind. It was the Colonel 
himself who was disappointed. Sorry for the boy, sorry 
for himself. Perhaps, after all, it was he who cared the 
more. He had been left standing on the doorstep with 
the useless kite in his hands. It was the boy he had 
thought himself sorry for; but perhaps Don had under¬ 
stood better than he, when he said, “Never mind, Dad! 
Another day.” 

But for some reason there had never been another 
day—the kite had never been flown. It had gradually 
found its way into some closet and eventually been 
relegated to the attic. It was here now before him, lying, 
still fairly crisp and new, in the old man’s hands. 

And suddenly it seemed as if all his bitter grief collected 
itself and centred in the memory of that one lost day of 
pleasure years ago. It stuck and persisted in his mind, 
one vast regret that would not be comforted, a never 
ceasing, never to be satisfied wrong. 

He passed his trembling old hands over the smooth, 
slender blades of the kite. His eyes, hot and dry, search¬ 
ing the empty garret, filled suddenly, and the paper sides 
of the kite blistered under his starting tears. He leaned 
3H 


MANY WATERS 


forward stretching out his arms over the flimsy toy; but 
only the shadowy presence of that little, unseen figure 
heard the words that struggled from his lips—the deep, 
heart-wrung cry of generations of the bereaved: 

“Oh, my son, Absalom! Oh, Absalom, my son, my 
son!” 


2 

The old man raised himself up feebly. He seemed 
much older, an old, old man; for grief will age a man far 
more than years. He rose and made a pathetic attempt 
to straighten his shoulders. Don would want him to keep 
up! 

He moved; and as he did so his eyes fell on a packet 
of letters that had fallen to the floor, an old packet tied 
loosely about with a faded string. 

The old man stooped and picked it up, shoving the 
bulging papers together with his trembling hands. He 
glanced at them absently—mostly old bills and receipts, 
one or two noted and labelled in Clara Callender’s neat, 
fine script. The old man fumbled with the package, 
trying to look at one more closely written over than 
the rest. A paper loosened itself from the bunch; 
slipped from between his fingers and fluttered to the 
floor. 

The Colonel stooped again. As he raised it he saw 
that it was part of an old letter; the handwriting was 
Donald’s. 

“Don! Don!” he breathed; and the paper shook as he 
read it. 

He read it over twice, slowly. It was only a half sheet 
torn off, unfinished, evidently a first draft of a letter or 
an unsatisfactory copy that he had thrown aside to start 
afresh. 


315 


MANY WATERS 

Colonel Callender went back and read it again. He 
turned it over and looked at it carefully. No date; but 
the fact that it had slipped in with these bills, by accident 
surely, placed it sufficiently accurately—the last year of 
Clara’s life. 

It was short. Only a few sentences written hurriedly 
without beginning or end. 

“I have a feeling that Marian at least ought to know 
it was you, Mark, who got Prince out of that burning barn 
and not me. God knows I’m no hero! Doesn’t matter 
about the others—my Dad’s proud of me, but he’d feel 
the same way—but it might make a difference with Marian 
—about you, I mean—” 

The rather boyish writing broke off abruptly. 

The Colonel sat thinking. The scene came back to him. 
So it hadn’t been Donald who saved his horse that time. 
Well, well, that was a long time ago. How proud he had 
been of Don! The boys were brave, both of them. But 
Don was right about his feeling the same way. He 
shouldn’t have taken the credit that belonged to another 
man. And Mark, too! Mark who had risked his life to 
save him over there in France! The old man’s eyes be¬ 
came suffused with tears. Ah, there was a brave lad! 
What did Donald mean by, “it might make a difference 
with Marian?” He wrinkled his brows. 

Some inner conviction made him fold the letter care¬ 
fully away in his wallet. Mark and Don had been com¬ 
rades always; Mark had tried to save his boy. He must 
do his best for Mark. He did not understand; blind im¬ 
pulse and the feeling that he was obeying Don’s wishes 
led him straight from the attic to Marian’s cottage. 

316 


MANY WATERS 


It made him happy feeling he was doing something 
noble in Don’s name. The little leaves rustling overhead 
told him he was right; a sense of Don, close at hand, en¬ 
couraging him, comforted him; the world grew suddenly 
bright with a sense of duty done; the old man was happy. 


CHAPTER XXI 


1 

t | ^HE long road from Thornton to Whitridge 
stretched white and gleaming under the spring- 
tide sun when Mark Wetherell came home from 
the war. There was no beating of drums nor blaring of 
trumpets to greet him when he arrived. Whitridge wel¬ 
comed her returning sons calmly, dispassionately, even 
this one who wore beneath his coat the highest medal in 
the gift of the country. They had done their duty; what 
man could do less? The word “hero” was never spoken; 
least of all would Mark have liked it if it had been. 

He came back to the village and the townspeople and 
the friends of his youth the same simple, unaffected, un¬ 
assuming Mark, and slipped unostentatiously back into 
his old place in Judge Phillips’s office. There was the 
usual nuisance of newspaper interviews and being invited 
to sit on platforms at public meetings, but these things 
Mark evaded with a sagacity and slyness surely lately 
acquired. And interest in one who systematically refuses 
to feel himself interesting soon dies out. People ceased 
to speak of his exploit. Only those nearly concerned re¬ 
membered. 

2 

On a day that was tremulous with the ripening breath 
of summer, Marian hitched Nance to the old buggy and 
drove in to Thornton. She left Aunt Julia making pre- 

318 



MANY WATERS 


serves in the cottage kitchen; there were some glass jars 
needed—that made an excuse for her journey. 

The drive to town was uneventful. Scrupulously hon¬ 
est she bought the jars first; then drove the mare down 
Elm Street and drew up before the door of Judge Phil¬ 
lips’s office. It was a quaint, old-fashioned, rambling, 
wooden building much in need of paint, was indeed one 
of the oldest in town, situated in a quiet by-street running 
off from one of the business thoroughfares. 

Marian got out of the buggy and tied Nance to the old- 
fashioned iron horse post before the door. With a little 
catch in her throat she walked up the steps and opened the 
door. 

Mark was sitting in the outer office as she entered. He 
rose and came eagerly forward, holding out his hands in 
welcome. When he came towards her like this his face 
lit up, rather as if some one had lighted a candle 
within. 

Marian saw; and felt the rose deepen on her cheek. 

Mark was holding open the door of the inner office for 
her. 

“Judge Phillips is away. Let’s go in here; we can talk 
better. This is indeed an honour. Do you know, I was 
feeling very dull and just wishing something exciting like 
this would happen. Did you ever do that as a child? 
Close your eyes and think perhaps when you opened them 
you’d see-—whatever it was you desired to see? I did it 
to-day. I was thinking of you and I closed my eyes for 
an instant. I opened them and here you are. And yet 
there are people in the world who won’t believe in mira¬ 
cles—but they’re the fools and the losers!” 

Marian smiled. “Mark, will you ever grow up?” She 
stepped through the doorway into the inner office and took 
the chair he pulled forward for her. 

319 


MANY WATERS 

“What a big hat/’ he said. “Won’t you take it off? 
Let me take it.” 

She had on a wide-brimmed shade hat which drooped 
over her left cheek and cast a deep shadow over her grey 
eyes. While he stood waiting she did, as he had suggested, 
take it off, and laid it on the table beside her. He noticed 
that after she had done so she did not put her hands up to 
smooth her hair or fuss self-consciously with her appear¬ 
ance as most girls would have done. She took the hat off 
and it was off and that was the end. That was part of her 
charm—she did everything so simply. 

Yet she was not quite calm. There was a hesitant diffi¬ 
dence, a faint nervousness in her manner; and her cheeks 
were unusually flushed. Mark leaned towards her from 
the Judge’s big armchair. 

“Tell me, is something troubling you? Are you wor¬ 
ried about anything? Can I be of use?” 

Marian hesitated, glancing a trifle nervously around the 
office. She had been here before at the time of her 
mother’s death, when Mark and the grave, courteous old 
man whose place he was now occupying had put her af¬ 
fairs in order for her, but not recently. In a flutter of 
memory she saw the walls lined with fat legal volumes in 
their calfskin bindings, and sniffed the intangible odour of 
old leather and parchment. That time seemed very long 
ago to her now. 

A big willow tree in the back yard, heavy with summer 
foliage, drooped over the rear window like a green water¬ 
fall. She noticed the patterns its dancing leaves made on 
the grey wall opposite above the bookcases. 

She looked last at Mark himself. There was something 
old-fashioned about him, too, seen in these surroundings, 
something in keeping with the room in which they sat— 
an air of old-world courtesy and chivalric reverence for 
320 


MANY WATERS 

women, something gentle and restrained. She could not 
help thinking of that as she met his clear, blue eyes with 
their steady smile as he leaned towards her. 

She took a paper from her dress and held it between 
her fingers. 

“Mark, I came to you because—” She stopped and 
slipped the paper into his hand—the old letter Colonel 
Callender had brought her. 

He turned it over in his hands a moment, then began 
reading it, slowly, thoughtfully. She watched his face as 
he read. 

She saw that he had finished long before he looked up 
and met her eyes. She spoke first: 

“So it was you all the time and not Donald who saved 
Prince. And yet you never told—not even me!” 

“Of course not, Marian.” 

“But if you knew how I revered him for that—what a 
hero he was in my eyes— And all the time it was you— 
Oh, Mark, why didn’t I guess?” 

He folded the letter and held it out to her. 

“Do you want this?’’ 

She shook her head; and he rose and walked over to 
the table. Very deliberately he lighted a candle and 
watched the old, brittle paper crackle to ashes. When it 
was gone he came over and took her hands in both of his. 

“We won’t think of that again. Neither you nor I have 
ever doubted Donald’s courage.” 

“But I’m glad I know at last.” 

“It matters so little now.” 

“Yes—now!” She, too, had risen and stood looking 
at him, a half-wistful smile upon her lips. “But I am 
afraid we neither of us, Don nor I, appreciated you in the 
old days. I am sure I didn’t. Always I have undervalued 
you!” 


321 


MANY WATERS 


He smiled and shook his head. “No, no,” he said. 

“But I was unjust and stupid! I was blind to so much 
that was good!’’ 

“No, no, I will not have you say such things.” 

“Ah, but I must say them—and more. Mark, tell me 
truthfully, do you care for me—still?” 

“You know that, Marian.” 

She hesitated, and again the rosy colour flooded her 
cheeks. 

“Mark, do you remember what you said when you went 
away, when I last talked with you like this—that you 
would never—never tell me that again unless I asked you 
to? Mark, I came here to-day—to ask you—” But the 
words were too difficult to say. They were facing each 
other, both standing; and the willow tree outside the win¬ 
dow waved its mocking shadows over their faces and over 
the wall behind them. They were so still the very rustle 
of its leaves could be heard through the glass; the tick¬ 
ing of a clock on the bookcase sounded abnormally 
loud. 

Mark spoke at last, hesitantly: “Is it because of this 
letter ? Is it because you no longer love Donald, Marian ?” 

She met his eyes without constraint, and shook her 
head. 

“I shall always love him. I could not change that un¬ 
less I changed myself. There is a verse in the Bible that 
says, 'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the 
floods drown it.’ That is the way I feel about Donald; 
the way I shall always feel. Mark, surely you are too 
noble and good to wish that to be different.” 

He looked at her with love in his eyes. “Your loyalty 
is the most beautiful thing about you!” He paused. 
“Then it is for that other, for the thing I did for him— 
in France ? ,? 


3 22 


MANY WATERS 

“I—I don’t know.” She looked up, her grey eyes 
clouded. 

u For that was for you, too, Marian. I could not have 
looked you in the face if I had not gone out there after 
him. And then, when it was all so useless, when I failed 
—ah, you don’t know how I resent that failure, Marian!” 

“I know,” she whispered. “Oh, Mark, I do care for 
you for that.” 

He turned from her with a little sigh and dropped her 
hands which he had taken in his. 

“Ah, my dear, did you think I would take you like that, 
claim you as a reward for what I had done!” 

“Mark, Mark!” she cried. 

He spoke resolutely, sternly. “I want only the best. 
There was a time when I wanted you desperately, blindly 
—at any price. It was a selfish love, a thoughtless love. 
I know now that I was wrong. You have taught me a 
lesson in faithfulness to one’s ideals. You’ve always been 
so earnest, so sincere, so like a rock in your steadfastness. 
You’ve no idea how wonderful you are. You keep the 
same ideals you always had, all the paraphernalia of the 
soul that the rest of us have either lost or discarded as 
useless in a workaday world.” 

She spoke slowly. “After all, because life is unsatis¬ 
factory is that any reason why one should give up one’s 
ideals ?” 

“Ah, that is it,” he said. “I would not let you imperil 
yours by coming to me.” 

Marian spoke softly. “Then—then you don’t want to 
marry me now?” 

He shook his head. “No, dear.” 

She looked down quietly, not shamefacedly. “You 
know, I came here to-day to tell you I would.’’ 

“I know. And I am grateful. Oh, Marian dear, you 
323 


MANY WATERS 


know it is not that I don’t love you! You know that! I 
do—more than ever. So much that I would not take this 
charity at your hands. For it is charity, however much 
we disguise it.” 

She looked up. There were tears in her eyes. 

She spoke. “You know what you are doing? I—I 
can’t ever ask you again.” 

“I know,” he said with downcast eyes. 

She picked up the big hat from the table and put it on. 
He watched the soft shadow of its brim fall again over 
her face. It was like a shadow falling over his heart. 

“Good-bye, Mark!” 

“Good-bye, Marian!” 

He went forward and opened the door of the inner 
office for her, then stood aside and watched her go slowly 
through the outer office, out through the open door and 
down the steps. He watched her until she had untied 
Nance and climbed into the buggy; watched until the last 
moment, until she had passed out of sight. And the light 
of Mark’s world went out with her. 


CHAPTER XXII 


O N a vivid, blustering morning in September, 
Marian walked down the shore road towards the 
flat reaches of Hodder’s Beach with the same 
brisk step as of old. Although there were things needing 
to be done at the cottage, some inner restlessness had 
driven her forth to seek the calm and solitude of the 
sandy wastes below the church. Here for years she had 
brought her joys and sorrows; the sea and the headland 
and the long, grey stretches of sandy shore were hers; 
they would understand and soothe her mood; she had 
known these things all her life. 

She came to the beach and saw the sands stretching 
endlessly away, white and cool, the sea gulls flapping 
overhead, the long line of breakers down towards the 
headland, the hunched backs of the dunes and the flash¬ 
ing white Casino. 

It was a day of uncertain promise; a day of shifting 
sun and shadow. The great clouds raced across the blue, 
driven by invisible winds, their dark shadows patterned 
on the grey sands below as they hurried by. The wavelets 
broke far out, line after line, gentle, untroubled, calm, 
sliding back with a soft, singing sound. 

She turned, walking northward towards the white Ca¬ 
sino far up the beach. It made her think of Mark—the 
day he had dared her to climb inside one of the broken, 
shutterless windows of the lower floor. As vividly as if 
it had been yesterday she recalled the dank, mouldy interior 
with its cobwebby beams, flecked and scarred with scabi- 
325 


MANY WATERS 


ous incrustations from the damp, salt winds; the heap of 
broken chairs and benches grouped in the centre of the 
building; the hollow sound the waves made as they rushed 
up the beach without; the creaking and groaning of the 
wind— 

And then Mark had tried to tease her. He had run 
away and pretended to leave her there alone. The sud¬ 
den terror of the bleak, lonely place came back to her 
now. Ah! how frightened she had been! She had run 
after him, blindly, through the dark hall, calling his 
name. 

And at the sound of her voice he had turned compas¬ 
sionately to wait for her. “Pm here, Marian,he said, 
“right here!” And then the comforting clasp of his fin¬ 
gers as they scampered together into the clear light of out- 
of-doors. “I was there all the time. I’ll always be there,” 
Mark had said, when she begged him not to frighten her 
again like that. 

The memory of those words brought a sudden sob into 
her throat; a little ache of homesickness overcame her. 
That was all so long ago. She thought of all that had 
happened to her since those old days. Ah! what a thing 
life was! What a shifting, changing, kaleidoscopic thing! 
In childhood how little one guessed all that lay before 
one! How strange and difficult the path! 

Mark had praised her ideals the last time they had 
talked together. But did she really deserve that praise? 

Mark was away; had been gone all summer, since very 
soon after that last conversation in Judge Phillips’s office. 
Occasionally she reproached herself with being responsi¬ 
ble for his banishment. But she could not question his 
decision in regard to herself. He had been right, abso¬ 
lutely right—fiercely she told herself over and over again. 
It was her own fault, of that she was certain. All her 
326 


MANY WATERS 


life she had taken Mark and Mark’s devotion as a matter! 
of course. Small wonder that at the last Mark’s stem 
virtue must refuse her belated penitence. 

It did not ever occur to her to doubt his love for her. 
To doubt that would be to doubt her hopes of heaven 
itself. But if he guessed, if he knew, would he come 
back? 

For now at last she saw the past and the present very 
clear before her, spread out like a chart with every chang¬ 
ing emotion indicated upon it. Her love for Donald shq 
regarded without prejudice or self-deception, a deep love, 
a real love, the great love of her life, the eager, passionate 
love which youth offers once and only once. She had 
spoken the truth when she told Mark that nothing could 
alter that love. 

But now it was a memory, a distant, beautiful mem¬ 
ory. Death had mercifully put to sleep the old longings. 
The gusts of passion which the springtide of life had 
awakened were gone; the hopes, the dreams, the lovely 
imaginings were hers no longer. 

It was not that she had forgotten. In her heart she 
bore the burden of her unappeased love, all the sweet reve¬ 
lation of joys that she had missed, the years that disap¬ 
pointed; she saw life not the thing she had planned it, not 
a rhapsody of birds’ songs and the pearly mists of wak¬ 
ing dawns, not the “singing and the golden’’; yet the long 
procession of the years had left her something finer than 
those first passionate desires, a deeper nobility, a keener 
understanding. Her soul was a garden walled about 
with her own white thoughts, a place where memory’s 
feet might linger without reproach/ From all else Don¬ 
ald’s words—those last whispered words of his—had set 
her free. 

But that was what Mark could not understand—how 
327 


MANY WATERS 


that love of hers was now a thing of the past, the dear,, 
dead past. She had not known it herself until Mark went 
away. And now it was too late to tell him! 

She had wandered a long way towards the upper end 
of the beach, walking with her eyes cast down, close to the 
water’s edge where the hard sand, still wet, cracked and 
rayed and blanched as if with sudden fear beneath each 
footstep. But she was not thinking of the sand or the 
sea birds wheeling above her head or of the soft voice of 
the ocean. 

A big wave, larger than the rest, broke with a muffled 
roar. The water rippled; spread widely; ran well up the 
beach. With a start, Marian caught her skirts about her 
and ran quickly back out of reach. The sudden action 
interrupted her thoughts, made her look up. 

A man was standing a short distance from her, his 
figure outlined against the blue-white sky. She had not 
observed his approach. She stared an instant. Now with 
a surprise that left her almost dizzy, she recognised him 
and ran forward with a joyful cry: 

“Mark! Mark!” 

He came forward swiftly to meet her with outstretched 
hands over the flat, white sands. 

“Mark! Mark!” she cried again. And there was that 
in her voice that made Mark’s heart leap and his nerves 
quiver with a new, strange joy. 

They stood close together, staring at each other in sud¬ 
den understanding. And then, without quite knowing 
how it happened, he had her in his arms and was kissing 
the tender, yielding lips, those long desired lips that now 
met his for the first time. 

She leaned back in his arms looking up into his face. 

“Mark, how did you know?” 

He smiled into the grey, upraised eyes. “I have loved 
328 


MANY WATERS 

too long and too well not to know the look of love when 
it is there.” 

“Oh, my dear! Always I have loved you but not this 
way before. Can you forgive me this long delay? I 
have been so unhappy; I think I grew afraid of love. I 
am almost afraid now. It doesn’t seem right for me to 
be so happy.” 

“My poor darling! You shall always be happy now. 
For you do care for me now, Marian—you are sure?” 

“Oh, my dear, yes! You are so strong, so sure—so 
—so safe! I feel such perfect trust—’’ 

“And love, dear?” 

She met his eyes without constraint or reservation. 

“And love,” she said. 

“Oh, my darling, my darling! After all these years l” 

They turned together and walked back along the sands, 
slowly, absently, towards the rocky headland which St. 
Peter’s crowns; stopping occasionally to gaze out over the 
blue-grey water, their eyes following the flight of passing 
sea birds, their hearts speaking as well as their tongues. 

“When did you guess, Mark? What made you know 
and come back to me?” she asked him once. 

He paused a moment before he replied. “I don’t know 
exactly. I can’t explain. It was as if something just led 
me here. For several days I’ve been thinking of you and 
feeling that I ought to come back—that I’d been a coward 
to run away as I did—for I did run away from you, 
Marian. I didn’t know whether it was because I had truly- 
given up all hope—that seemed unbearable—or because I 
was afraid if I stayed I might find the temptation too 
strong for me—the temptation to go to you and retract 
what I had said, to beg you to offer me another chance. 
And then, yesterday, all at once, I just knew I had to 
come—I couldn’t explain it—I just knew.” 

3^9 


MANY WATERS 

“You were cruel,” she said, “to send me away the way 
you did.” 

“Was I, dear? If I hadn’t, if I had accepted your sac¬ 
rifice, would you ever have come to love me truly as you 
do now? Would you ever have really cared?” 

She shook her head. “I don’t know, dear. Perhaps 
the idea that I couldn’t have you after all made me want 
you; let me see my own need of you. It may have made 
me humble.” 

“Don’t say that, dear!” 

“Oh, but you were right. I ought, to be punished —” 

He stopped her with a kiss. 

They had turned back onto the road, cutting across 
the salt marshes, following it up over the hill whence the 
village could be seen lying cozily in its little hollow. At 
the top of the hill a shower overtook them. They had 
seen it coming back on the sands, but in their absorption 
had given no heed. Mark was optimistic. 

“It may pass over; it’s heading south.” 

But it was coming faster than they thought. The rain 
came down just as they reached the peak of the little rise 
—a sudden dash of big drops punctuated by gusty shak¬ 
ings of the thick-leaved trees on either hand. 

“Come closer to me,” he commanded, “and take my 
arm.” 

“Oh, it’s only a shower—it won’t last.” 

They drew aside from the road, standing in the lee of 
the thick bushes that lined the roadside. They were just 
at the pitch of the hill; the road and the country sur¬ 
rounding lay below them, the outlines blurred by the 
falling rain as if an awkward finger had smudged them 
out. A misty veil, like a curtain, hung all around them. 
There on the summit of the hill they seemed to be alone, 
cut off from all the world. 


330 


MANY WATERS 


Marian was standing very close to Mark. It gave her 
a peculiar thrill, this nearness—a happy, comforting 
thrill, a feeling of security and strength. She sighed, 
glancing out at the falling drops. 

“How beautiful it is! Oh, Mark, I am happy!” 

Suddenly the grey clouds above them parted; one little 
wispy streak of sunlight filtered through, widened, grew 
big; the wet leaves about them glistened delicately; a bird 
chirped from a near-by thicket. 

From the circling protection of Mark’s arm Marian 
pointed back the way they had come. 

“Look, Mark, a rainbow!” 

It hung in the sky above them a misty, tremulous arc 
of purest colour, arching down to earth, dazzling, evanes¬ 
cent, of an impalpable beauty—like a divine omen—a sign 
of God’s grace. 

Marian looked up into Mark’s face. 

“Oh, Mark, I believe I’ve really found it at last!” 

“What, dear?” 

“The thing we all search for, the golden happiness, the 
treasure hidden at the foot of the rainbow!” 

“I found it long ago,” he said. “Oh, my love! my 


THE END 






I 
















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